Today is the fifth anniversary of Night Club! In honor of it, I have decided to rehost my translations publicly onto Neocities!
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Anon: Hi! I realise in fanarts ritsu usually gets represented with the knight piece and izumi with the bishop? I can understand king = leo, queen = arashi and rook = tsukasa but I wonder if ritsu's and izumi's chess pieces have ever been stated somewhere or is it just a coincidence that those two are always drawn with these respective pieces in fanart
crossposted from twitter
hello! emblems of their pieces can be seen on their cards for the king's horseback ride (judgment). this association is definitely intentional, and there's a lot of analysis you can perform on these decisions! i know nothing about chess tho, so i got some help from my friend @nenosuns to answer this.
for ritsu: the knight's purpose is to "protect persons of rank" and they're less important than bishops, kings, and queens. they're often sacrificed to save the more important pieces. i think you can see this in ritsu's self-sacrificial nature quite well, and also how he sees himself as less important in knights (esp leo, the king). his strategy in judgment is to sacrifice himself for tsukasa, after all. and it ties in with his role as a strategist—knights can be sacrificed as part of a strategy to help the player win.
as for izumi as the bishop... the bishop represents the church, and according to the site i'll link below, "a bishop was the name for a priest in the catholic church who had risen through the ranks to a more powerful position." tbh just that alone makes it obvious why izumi would be represented as a bishop, wrt checkmate.
and from mia: "the bishop represents the church, the power who kept people together, a priest who have rised to a higher position by climbing up the ranks and taking pawns down"
and here's an interview saying that the characters *were* designed with the pieces in mind. so while i'm not seeing any explicit analogues, i think they're probably clear enough contextually to make the assignments. i hope this helps!
uhh yeah, like i said i really don't know much about chess, so i can only go based on what i'm reading right now. if you want to read for yourself, here's the sites we referenced for this:
✨ Chess is more than a game of skill-it is a medieval history lesson in miniature by MY_turn
✨ Chess: The Sixty Four Stratagems. by MartyRheemer
✨ Enstars Magazine vol.2: Interview with Development Staff – Unit Concept, translation by Bethygauw
Anon: ok omg i loved your mkiz thread PLEASE DO NOT APOLOGIZE!! may i ask if you've ever talked about the Portrait story though? i loved that it gave us insight on what izumi and makoto's relationship was like in their childhood - how their dependence on each other began. i'm excited to see it in EN one day as i don't play JP. i'd love to hear your thoughts on it
crossposted from twitter
oh do you mean the bane of my existence, the plague upon my crops, the worst thing to ever happen to me? yeah i have a few thoughts on it. i want to know what sick thoughts were going through akira's head when he wrote that. how dare he actually.
ughhhhhh i cannot believe how thoroughly portrait confirmed every single thought i've ever had about makoto and izumi, first of all. every time i read more, i had to grapple with the fact that i was right all along. do you know how hard that is to process? it's sickening.
also i don't think i'll ever fully process this but the way akira shamelessly implied that izumi wants to be beautiful because of his love for makoto? that's so fucked up actually. so fucked up, in fact, i'm now obligated to include it in all of my mkiz fics. SICK AND TWISTED
raindrops on roses
i just. honestly what the fuck. makoto's utter adoration for izumi, and izumi's utter adoration for makoto. they live in their own little world just for the two of them. they were each other's most important person, the center of each other's world. the lengths they went to in order to stay together are just insane, honestly, and it adds to the tragedy of the outcome. the way this translates into the current era adds so much depth to their relationship and really bolsters the respect and love they have for each other. it's a perfect backstory for them.
there's so much i can say about arashi too. she's just so weird throughout the story in an incredibly compelling way. i love love love that her love for akiomi started so early, and i'm a little obsessed with how aggressive she is about it. it's really cute actually.
one thing i wasn't particularly expecting was how tangled up she was with makoto from an early age, and i suppose it makes sense bc they drifted apart due to being in rival agencies, but i was REALLY happy about it! i'm a big fan of the model trio, so knowing they have history together is really important to me. i'm glad they've all known each other since childhood, and that their roots go so deep. i think it's such a good story for showing their origins, and it does a great job of showing why they ended up the way they did.
arashi from her broken, unloving home, used by the people closest to her, becoming distant and uncaring over time—you can see the beginnings of that so young. it's really interesting to see the contrast between her younger self and her current self. and yet she's still the same!
izumi actually mellowing out over time as he accepts his career as a model. i cannot BELIEVE his current self can be considered "mellowed out." that's horrible actually and i hate it. and makoto... honestly the part about his father was so unexpected, and i'm really obsessed with the direction taken for it, and the subtle sympathies elicited from it over time. it all ties in together so well, and i just. idk. it was a really good story and i hate it so much. it destroyed me. i will never recover from this story.
idk what else to say honestly. or rather, i have too much to say that i don't know how to gather my thoughts. it's just such a story, and i'm utterly miserable because of it. thanks akira. thanks. orz
(2024 Addendum: since this was originally a livetweet, the format of this may be strange and unintuitive. hopefully it’s still easy enough to read! also, tumblr only allows 30 images per post, so i’m forced to split this into three posts. sorry!)
part one || part two || part three
hmm this feels like a bad omen. thinking about the shinkai cult. thinking about mayoi. hmm
no seriously this whole thing is so funny. i like that tatsumi is so physical and touchy-feely... it makes me feel uh. inspired, you could say 😶
points. yeah
ah we're bringing back destiny again, are we... i think this corroborates what i was talking about yesterday with hot limit and rinne's perception of fate, so i really don't have much to add except that it adds to the notion that it's a part of the culture in the village
looking at this vs the hot limit epilogue back to back, i now fully believe akira is trying to draw parallels between them with their psychological pains. like it would just be a weird thing to draw attention to in both stories' epilogues otherwise imo
;w; it's really cute and sweet. aira's such a good character, seriously, and i like how his selfishness lends itself to being projected outward in such a positive and uplifting way to say "see? if i can do it, you can too." i think that's a nice message for his character to send
and done. i didn't say a lot about aira in this but to be fair i went a little nuts over him in grand slam so i felt like i would be repeating myself a lot...
(2024 Addendum: since this was originally a livetweet, the format of this may be strange and unintuitive. hopefully it’s still easy enough to read! also, tumblr only allows 30 images per post, so i’m forced to split this into three posts. sorry!)
part one || part two || part three
i really would love to know which unit was picked to perform at sakurafes this year. my hunger for knowledge is insatiable
i love the contrast between alkaloid and the bees. imo they represent the two positions in adult society: safety in conformity and change in revolution. i think it fits !! era's themes really well and they represent the two conflicting ideas present in the story as a whole. idk i think they're just really representative of !! era overall and i like that. i love metaphors
i definitely need a fic where tatsumi reminisces with himeru about this and himeru can't do anything but accept that he's larping the most cringe-ass dude alive and has to commit to the bit.
no but like genuinely i think it's so interesting how much kaname ended up hero-worshiping tatsumi, and how starkly that contrasts with himeru now. it's such a compelling facet of their relationship and one i just love exploring. i just want himeru to be humiliated basically.
also i like the implication that kaname thinks tatsumi has killed two people, since he has two moles. i think that's something we as a fandom should not overlook
oh honestly i don't think this realization should have hit me the way it did, but aira definitely grew up in the era of superidols. at least for just a little over half of his life? 8 years? i'm trying so hard to do math rn. but that really influences the framework under which aira perceives idols for sure. units only started being more commonplace with the war 2 years ago; most of his experience with idols, then, comes from soloists. idk i think that's interesting to think about, even though it's kinda obvious
(current ciel commentary: engstars actually mistranslates, or wildly misinterprets, tatsumi's line here. he says "i think it's problematic to wish for him to revert—or rather, for his corruption," hence my commentary on this)
"the wish to corrupt" huh... (gay silence)
sorry for being a mayohii liker
honestly i have no idea how to phrase what this does to me but it does Something. i just love the looming threat of tatsumi kazehaya in mayoi's life. it's so funny
ah... i like the reference back to hot limit with this. they both remember... (clenches fist)
(2024 Addendum: since this was originally a livetweet, the format of this may be strange and unintuitive. hopefully it's still easy enough to read! also, tumblr only allows 30 images per post, so i'm forced to split this into three posts. sorry!)
part one || part two || part three
interesting. there's a lot to unpack here and honestly i'm not sure where to begin. this seems to imply that hiiro's understanding of japanese history stops around 710ce, and it brings to question whether amagi village has access to later history and chose historical revisionism, or if they're so cut off from mainland japan that they don't know. if it's the latter, then it stands to reason that amagi village has been secluded and uninvolved with japan since at least the yamato period. interestingly, rinne has significantly more information about japanese history past the yamato period, enough so as to analyze it in context and criticize japan while applying it to ES in sudden death. so that'd mean he did a LOT of studying once he escaped the village (or possibly while he was frequenting the city before he ran away). by this i specifically mean the wajin and its application in japanese imperialism.
actually this is slightly tangential, but if rinne snuck out several times to the city, he probably did it on foot considering amagi village seems to not have access to modern transportation. so it'd stand to reason that the village itself is actually somewhat around the yumenosaki area (unless of course "the city" referred to a city near the village and NOT the tokyo metro area, thus meaning that he only came to yumenosaki for the first(?) time 4 years ago).
rinne would have snuck out for the first time 11 years ago, which is 4 years before the idol winter set in and while godfather was still pulling the strings of the industry. so "the city" could be anywhere if we take the assumption that rinne only made it to yumenosaki for the first time 4 years ago as the most likely truth. if we don't, then the yumenosaki area and its surrounding political geography just got a lot more interesting hmm
anyway tangent end, it just seems likely that the village doesn't have any nearby transportation considering they (probably) don't even have access to modern history.
how secluded does a region have to be to not have access to modern history? that's a genuine question, i'm not sure. my most immediate frame of reference is appalachia, which is geographically secluded from the rest of the US and so has developed an incredibly unique culture and dialect as a direct result of not having contact with other people outside the region. in appalachia at least it seems there were no efforts to school people until 1904 with the establishment of settlement schools, and before that education was a much lower priority due to the rugged land and isolation from the rest of the country. honestly i think using appalachia as a framework for amagi village probably isn't too far off due to the physical barriers that keep the mountain people away from the rest of the US (and it shows in the culture too).
the big difference is that appalachia was still considered part of the US, whereas amagi village seems to be entirely independent from japan, having its own government and system of laws unaffected by japan's. so it would be like a more extreme version of appalachia, i guess. and in that case, i suppose it wouldn't be too far off to say amagi village doesn't have access to modern history, the same with modern medicine and technology. assuming there ARE physical barriers that prevent contact between the two, there's a lot that they'd be missing.
oh but this does give rise to really interesting linguistic speculation. if the village is THIS secluded from the rest of civilization, then they probably have SUCH an interesting native dialect :D many features that have roots in archaisms due to their linguistic development happening in total isolation, similar to how appalachia retains a-prefixing in their progressive tenses as a carryover from early modern english. i'm gripping my thighs so hard i need to know more about the amagis' native dialect. akira please. if souma and shinobu can talk like they're from the sengoku and edo periods then hiiro and rinne can at least give me a TASTE of what their local dialect is. right ?!?!? right?!?!?!?!?!?!? (begging miserably)
also i like the different ways the amagis adapted to japanese, and i think this makes their current dialectical choices so interesting and reflective of their personalities and psyches. sighs so much. please i want more so bad. please akira.
ok also i'm going to think about the alternate pathway this can take. in that rather than being totally and completely isolated, the village has a revised understanding of history. hiiro does say it's only "slightly" (微妙) different from what he was taught, even though that "slightly" is uh, kinda major i'd say?! if he seems to have no significant knowledge of the sengoku period that's. kinda major!??!?!? but anyway if the village is fed an alternate version of history, what does that entail? who stands to gain from that, especially in teaching the ruling class this revisionist history? i have doubts as to whether it would be on purpose because if it's intentional, it means there's someone above the ruling class trying to control them, and based on literally everything else we know about the village hierarchy, that just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. so i guess it cycles back to closed-door policies and speculative understanding of japanese history, combined possibly with a lack of emphasis on "frivolous" education outside of the ruling class. honestly my appalachia comparison really seems to hold up well. i feel like if i look more into the culture of appalachia as it developed pre-20th century i can find a lot of things that can apply to how the amagis talk about their village, as well as their values. this paper i've been looking at already seems so familiar tbh
we see fatalism in both hiiro and rinne, and both of their characters are centered around combating their own fatalistic worldviews through coming to the city. there's a reluctance to change that's examined over and over, enforced by their (at the very least) social isolation.
idk i think using these isolating communities of people can give real insight to the village. i can think of basque country as another example, but i'm far less familiar with it and the culture of the people, whereas i have much more firsthand experience with appalachia. i am just thinking.
MOVING ON NOW i do appreciate the wink and nod at historical revisionism in schools. especially significant for a marginalized person like tatsumi with plenty of generational trauma to go around. i think that's nice.
actually i'm not feeling too talkative right now (sleeby...) but i like this!! points. tatsumi is so smart and perceptive, and i like how he sees through eichi's plans so easily and with aplomb. idk he's such a cool character
more amagi village things... not much to say here except that this points to the village culture being more conservative in nature. shrugs. im still so sleepy
hmm i think i misunderstood this the first time i read it. looking at it now, i think this is a really interesting position to take on god. it doesn't matter whether the man himself exists in the sky. god is real simply because people act in the name of him.
and honestly that's hard to argue with, and i'm tempted to agree with him. it's an argument so final that it validates religiosity even in the face of utterly damning evidence to the contrary. this is a perspective that makes a lot of sense for a religious minority to take imo, since you'd grow up having your values and beliefs constantly challenged. if you contrast it to, say, the bible belt, god's existence is taken for granted, and even someone just saying they're atheist is enough of a threat that it has to be stamped out. it's blasphemous.
but tatsumi doesn't have that privilege. the christian population in japan is around 1.5% and shinto is a religion that isn't inherently based around the belief in god (or rather, practicing shintoists aren't necessarily obligated to believe in a god, i guess).
so looking at it from that perspective, it makes a lot of sense why tatsumi would adopt this position on god's existence. i don't really know much about hidden christians in terms of how they view the idea of god himself, but at the very least from what i know of the history i can see how that mindset would develop, considering the persecution and suppression of religion and even the very concept of god in japan. so even if other hidden christian groups aren't of this mindset, i can see tatsumi at the very least being a very realistic portrayal of the effects of centuries of religious persecution. it's a very powerful and defiant statement too, one that openly denies all contrary evidence with a brazen attitude and a grin. "there isn't a magic man in the sky? well people still act in his name, so he exists" it's so cheeky.
idk i think this is interesting and absolutely and fully explains his unwavering faith in his god. there's a lot of depth in this proclamation that explains so much of his actions and perspective on the world. hmmm. i like kazehaya tatsumi a normal amount
i love tatsumi's capacity for evil. he's so perceptive that he *can* think about these possibilities, even if he himself wouldn't act on them. that's what helped him discern eichi's motivations in main story after all. grrrrrrrrrr
Anon: hii i hope you're having a wonderful day i love reading your analyses and now i decided to finally ask you a question of my own.
i was wondering what your thoughts were on tatsumi's and koga's relationship as roommates? they're quite the contrast in personality and the way they present themselves towards others, but on the other hand i feel like they complement each other pretty well too. I'm not sure if you want more specific questions so perhaps, what would be their pitfalls, working together, and what points do you think they would be a power team?
(i know there's not a whole lot to go on here so if you can't respond I won't mind it… hapiele give us more material)
crossposted from twitter
i'm really in love with this dorm so much. it's such a silly concept but it's so wholesome in execution. like??? tatsumi just??? gives sermons to koga??? and koga listens??? please i'm sorry i'm literally so obsessed with this my mind is consumed with thoughts of tatsumi reading the bible to koga as a bedtime story or whatever. this is my favorite thing i wish i were kidding.
sometimes i'm capable of pushing past those thoughts though, and when i do i'm just genuinely very pleasantly surprised at their relationship. i think the fact that they're such an unlikely match-up makes them all the more endearing, and i'm so so so in love with it <3 tatsumi's calm and patient presence meshes so unexpectedly well with koga's fiery and abrasive attitude, and i love how they come to accept and respect each other (pleading emoji).
tatsumi is really well built to handle someone like koga because he's got the patience of a saint (pun… definitely intended) and will listen to the contents of what koga has to say without getting defensive or without ridiculing him for it, and i think that's really great for koga in particular when he's very often played for laughs and when so many people do react in a more joking way to his passion :] it's nice to have that kind of contrast, and that he can have someone to turn to who will unconditionally respect him! it's so cute ToT
and on the other hand, koga is such an earnest guy, he can give back exactly what tatsumi gives him. like of course he's willing to listen to tatsumi talk about our lord and savior jesus christ. koga is literally just that kinda guy-passionate, honest to a fault, and willing to extend the same respect he gets. i do think it's really nice that he didn't really expect to get along with tatsumi, and i think it's really nice that his perspective changes when they're talking about gardening of all things. that little common thread that links them together helps anchor them together and give them common ground they can build on and!!! through that, they grow closer and their bonds strengthen and they share that mutual respect and (lays down)
as for your other questions (thinking emoji) honestly i'm not too sure. i'm not very good at headcanon-y questions at all, so i feel like i'm hitting a brick wall trying to think of anything. or rather i should say, you said "power team" and i immediately started thinking about my in-development fantasy au and how i could make them a power duo somehow and now i can't think of anything beyond that LOL
but umm…!!!! sorry i don't think i can answer all of your questions but but!! yeah i just really love this dorm, i love their relationship, and i think they would make the absolute most kickass christian rock band ever. i care them.
Anon: is adonis the only member of undead that hasnt talked about his feelings in retrospect about the war ? i forget if he even participated in the war either. i know koga talked about the war and his feelings in the aftermath of it in nightless city live, and i know kaoru talked about it in sandstorm, and we obviously know reis since he was active in the war. but what was adonis' role exactly? it seems like everyone except rei in undead was absent during it and now regrets/is sad about not being able to help out, but did adonis ever talk about it like koga and kaoru did? im so curious on his thoughts about it all and if he feels the same way as koga and kaoru do
crossposted from twitter
hmm yeah i can't remember an instance where he's monologued about it or talked about it at length? unlike koga, adonis wasn't really too involved in war-era politics, so he might have been too "removed" from the happenings to really have much of an opinion. well i say that, but i do think his opinions are made pretty clear in how he talks about things, actually.
i would say that he's a very go-with-the-flow kind of person, in a much more genuine way than kaoru is. he seems to accept things as they are and tries to understand them, not by digging in too deeply, but simply by letting things be and existing alongside them. you see this pretty clearly in how he reacts to rei's personality change from ore rei to wagahai rei—i'll use the example from sandstorm since it's the one that comes to mind first, but he says:
"I've always wondered why you changed your manner of speech so suddenly. But you're still you—That hasn't changed. I came to understand that it's the same as you changing your clothes."
he takes things in, accepts them, and understands them as they are, rather than trying to dig for deeper meaning. considering this has to do with the past, and especially with someone who was intimately involved with the war, i don't think it'd be a stretch to extend this to the war as a whole, and that's kind of how i understand his perception of it. he witnessed the war from the sidelines, accepted it as a reality, and worked to understand it as it was.
i mean, adonis is a very level-headed guy. he isn't resistant to change and he doesn't close himself off when what he knows is threatened. he's open-minded and accepting, and i think the way he understands rei can reveal a lot of his thoughts on the war as a whole. but those are just my thoughts on it; i don't believe anything's been confirmed about this quite yet! (i could be wrong though, or forgetting something…? not sure!)
Anon: i was wondering if you had any thoughts regarding niki's role in crazy:b? my thoughts are basically i think he acts as a strong supporting role to all of them but i'm curious about your opinions/perspective?
crossposted from twitter
niki's role hmm~ (thinking emoji) a hard question i think! i would definitely say that niki acts as something of an (unwilling) emotional pillar for rinne, considering how much he idolizes and cares about niki. but ofc, his relationship with rinne is very different from his relationship with himeru and kohaku.
i think there's something to be said about niki being likened to nike, the greek goddess of victory, in the main story. of course, this was rinne who made the analogy, so we could call it bias, but the fact that such an analogy was made in the first place does stick out to me so i think there's probably at least some truth to it. according to rinne, he's a genius, and he seems to be able to follow along with the bee-chans' idol work without putting in nearly any effort toward it while still succeeding. so with all of that together, i do think he can act as a strong support for the rest of the bees, with the potential of being a major player in the unit were he to actually apply himself to his idol work.
for himeru and kohaku, he seems to be a more down-to- earth confidante, since all three of them are kinda constantly being dragged into rinne's bullshit. at least until sudden death, he's read to me as something of aconnecting string between rinne and the other bees, since he kinda has one foot on either side of the threshold-he knows rinne's shtick and knows how to respond to it, he's familiar with it all. but he's also really grounded and doesn't get swept away in all the excitement. with himeru embracing rinne's dumb shit, that bridge doesn't seem as necessary as before, but i do think it probably helped solidify their existence as a unit.
so i do think you're probably right about niki functioning as a support for the rest of the bee-chans, especially for rinne. of course, there's this constant push for niki (mostly by rinne) to take idol work seriously, so i think we're probably going to see development in that area eventually-and when we do, his role in crazy:b might change drastically. for now, though, he's very content to take a back seat and do the bare minimum, just hang out with everyone else and dick around. i do think that, given how much push we see in the narrative for niki to grow, we'll see exactly that tho, so i'm looking forward to whatever that brings.
oh and of course, when i started thinking about this question, the first thing that popped into my mind was this part from sudden death:
Rinne: Haha, the little King of Knights, huh? Big name for such a little kid. Actually, I'd say you're closer to Niki's position in our little circle, don'tcha think?
Niki: Huh? That'd just make him a little worker bee, right?!
Rinne: More like the guy we all love to love ♪
HiMERU: Or, if you put a negative spin on it, the guy we love to pick on.
niki as the in-universe crazy:b comic relief character so true <3 we love to love him <3
Anon: Hi hi! I've actually stumbled upon your fics and I was really curious with your dynamics and answers with the RinneYuta ship
FIRST THINGS FIRST, I've did read some stories with them together but I do want your true opinions of what do you think the dynamic looks like wehehehe. And second, is it YutaRinne? Or RinneYuta? Like I'm asking on a preference on who's mostly the top of the relationship. 🤔
crossposted from twitter
ohoho hello there! i'll link my excessively long essay about their dynamic first, but as for your second question, i like yuuta pretty strictly in the left position! (aka, yuurin and not rinyuu)
i actually don't really factor in top/bottom (or sex in general, really) into my ship dynamics because it's not something i'm particularly interested in exploring, so you can take this as more of a dom/sub thing i guess?
but i really like yuurin because it functions as a sort of power fantasy for yuuta, where rinne is both a conduit for and a representation of yuuta's power and growth. because he's what yuuta's aiming for, so he represents yuuta's power (in that he has what yuuta wants)—and at the same time, due to the antagonistic nature of their relationship, rinne can be the medium through which yuuta exercises that power as he grows. i'm also something of a subby rinne truther, so it fits well with my overall impressions of rinne as a character!
(2024 addendum: it seems the original post i was quoting has been made private, so the context, from what i remember, was a chart of various characters' ages in story flashbacks. rinne's age was listed as ???)
so rinne actually says in ch128 of ms!! that he's spent 10 years in the village, making him 10 years old. this is the chapter where he sneaks out to go to the city, possibly for the first time (since the hot limit flashback mentions him not having ever gone to the city, and so is sandwiched between the ch57 flashback and the ch128 flashback). so flashback rinne is 10! which also means flashback hiiro is around... 5? assuming it takes place in the summer
Anon: when you talk about this Antiques story and how Madara’s faults are pointed out by Shu, I can’t help but think about how possibly is the reason Madara developed such a view of the world, others and himself. If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind sharing a bit of your thoughts on this? Also, to what extent do you think his childhood with Kanata (and the whole cult) affected him?
crossposted from twitter
hello! wow another complex question hmm. so i'm going to say something weird, but i need you to stay with me okay. so you know youtubers like the amazing atheist? people who grew up in a christian world, discovered atheism, and thought they had the whole world figured out? i think madara is similar. so the idea here is when you grow up in a fundamentalist environment and you break out of that fundamentalism, there's this immediate sense of isolation and alienation from the people around you. you lose your community because you no longer value or even believe the things that they do. that can lead you to seeking out community elsewhere—or, in a lot of cases, to seeking out a platform because you want to be heard. because when your voice is drowned out by the fundamentalist majority, you want to be heard.
i think a lot of minority groups can understand this desire. i mean, why else are nongenetic marginalized groups such as queer and disabled people drawn so much to the internet? we want to find like-minded people and share our experiences because the people around us are isolating and alienating by nature. society wasn't made for us, and so we have to make our own space because lying down and accepting it was never an option.
but this can easily get warped and twisted. and that's where i bring up youtubers like the amazing atheist. now i'm only using this guy as a stand-in caricature of what i'm talking about; i watched a handful of his videos when i was exploring my own belief at age 12/13-ish and then i forgot about him entirely and i have no idea what he's doing right now. this is my disclaimer.
but i hope the idea of this caricature is clear: this is a guy who thinks he has it all figured out. he's angry, he's condescending, he's talking at his audience because he's gotten to a point where he's desperate to be heard and seen. the only way he knows to ease that sense of isolation is to build a platform and shout his ideas at the world. the inherent problem with this, of course, is that he's not building a community this way, he's just saying his piece and leaving, much like a public speaker would. i don't mean to say that public speaking is problematic, but rather that this is just not how you build a community. it's not how you stop feeling alienated. you build it by sharing ideas and values, listening to others, forming long-lasting relationships based on shared ideologies and fundamental beliefs. it's mutual and it's a collective experience.
so basically what i'm getting at is that madara, by growing up isolated in this cult, was isolated and alienated for much of his life because he didn't believe in or value the same things everyone else in his community did. and that can really fuck with someone's perception. when you feel like you're alone in the world, you can often default to the idea that there's no one who can be a community with you. and then you isolate yourself. and this is where we find madara at yumenosaki. when he's given the chance to mingle with other students, he doesn't. but he also doesn't pass up the opportunity to preach to them, to evaluate the world from his own perspective and cast judgment on it based on his analysis. throughout ! era, he's incredibly separated from the rest of the cast and that feels by design.
i wrote this on discord a while back so i'll paste it instead of rehashing it here, but as a result of this alienation, madara is positioned as a narrator of the story, and we see that quite a lot in his ! era stories. if we go back to the caricature of the amazing atheist,
this "narrative" quality madara exhibits feels very reminiscent of that same "public speaker" position that he and youtubers like him take up in order to share their ideas. so i hope what i'm saying by comparing the caricature with the character makes sense.
—oh i just thought of a great way to put it but i'm absolutely not going up to rewrite this whole comparison and my comparison still holds true anyway so: he's like a prophet. and so is the amazing atheist and all the others out there spreading their gospels. madara is preaching to people, telling them the truth of the world, and as a result we come to trust him because he's letting us as readers in on some big conspiracy. which is why antique legend is so good, because it strips his prophet role away from him and puts him into the cast again. it refuses to let him be excluded from the narrative, like moses speaking the commandments to a crowd at mt sinai. he's *become* the narrative he was spinning, and it's cool! i think this story is just pure genius. it does so much for madara, it strengthens his character in such unique ways, and it solidifies him into the cast in a way that resonates throughout the whole of !! era, because now he has a stake in the game, and he's trying to return to a state where he didn't (and you can see that echoed in stories like a spring evening's respite).
he gains a solid, fleshed-out narrative arc through this story because he loses his place as a prophet. he's now just a character, no longer able to dictate the story we read. it's really cool! oh i love this story. anyway i think that's all i have to say! stan mikejima madara
Anon: what do u think about wataru's past? idk if its mentioned in any stories but id like to know what made him like this! and sorry if im asking too much, but what do u think about madara and wataru?
crossposted from twitter
i actually don't care about wataru's past! i've posted my thoughts on wataru's character a bit before, but ultimately, i'm very enamored by the narrative choices made regarding wataru's past and how he interacts with it.
i think it's very cool that wataru goes through painstaking efforts to make sure there is no man behind the mask, and i love how this ties into his personal philosophy. i also think there's something inherently tragic in a man who has worn so many masks and subsumed so many roles that he has forgotten about his own lived experiences and has therefore discarded them entirely. and boy do i love tragic characters <3
most characters are defined by their past and the struggles they faced growing up. they usually have a deep-seated trauma that existed prior to the story, or which occurs at the beginning of the story. this is something we've largely been conditioned to expect, and almost all of the enstars cast follows this model. and of course they would; a past inherently gives a character depth both within themself and with their relationships with others. but this is exactly why i think wataru is such a success.
because wataru is someone who exclusively exists in the present. he has no past, he has no future, he simply Is. the past we get is something other people ascribe to him because other people can't accept this part of him, and he himself thinks little of it. and usually, this impermanence lack of roots in the world would make for a shallow character, but somehow enstars pulls it off. and they do it really well! they reveal bits and pieces of wataru's character over a plethora of stories, especially stories where he doesn't even have story prominence, and this choice in itself is something that builds up his character and makes him so complex. wataru is someone you have to work hard to understand, both inside the universe and outside it too. we're caught up in his antics just as much as the characters themselves, and this is so exciting to me because it really cements who he is in a really tactile way.
so these choices and the unique way wataru is brought to life makes his past irrelevant to his character, and i think that's the best way to do justice to who he is and what he wants. it's really cool, and it makes it all the more exciting whenever we get glimpses into his mental state!
as for madawata, i think they're really interesting! i honestly don't have too many thoughts on their relationship, but their potential is striking and i love seeing them interact. they're very similar in many ways, and that creates a lot of intrigue surrounding them. it's unfortunate that they don't really get to interact all that much, so i'm looking forward to more roommates content in the future <3
hopefully this answered your questions well enough!! thank you!
some disjointed and unrefined ramblings about wataru and enstars's narrative choices, originally elaborated on discord
seriously akira writes wataru so well. all the time. he is written with the utmost care and perfection and i am always so copiously satisfied with every piece of wataru lore we get. the fact that he's so opaque and impossible to read makes every single thing he says stand out so many times more, and the barest hints we get of his inner machinations speak such volumes that it's almost deafening. it's a masterpiece.
the absolute tragicomedy that is his life and self-esteem is recorded in every word he speaks and its amazing…✰
also the fact that you get wataru lore in the most unexpected places is so wonderfully in-character and it fits so well with who he is and god he is a MASTERPIECE. i love how every single thing about him down to the tiniest detail is all focused on giving this specific effect and building this specific character. everything has a purpose and everything adds onto him
i just think it's AMAZING that while you can read a handful of well-defined stories to get a sense of who a character is and how they think and grow and change, you absolutely can't do that with wataru.
and the conscious effort to bury wataru's lore and thoughts within miniscule blurbs throughout all fucktillion of the enstars stories is so neat and cool, because it parallels the lengths that wataru goes to hide himself behind a mask.
other characters may be tough nuts to crack, but once you crack them open they come spilling out. but wataru never does that
he remains opaque and out-of-reach and he makes you chase after him. it perfectly encompasses his entire role in the story, his entire character. all through narrative choices. and how cool is that!!!!!!!!!!
i like wataru's view on life and like i think it's true. he doesn't care what the truth of his past is, because what matters is the present, who he is right now, and what future he can make with that. and you know like when you're examining fictional characters you want a complete story, right? you want to know where they come from and what their roots are, so you can understand them better.
but akira threw that out the window and said Look at him, this creature who exists only in the present. he has no past, he is a total enigma, a complete murky darkness if you peek too far. and yet, despite all of that, despite his mess of contradictions and incomprehensible monologues, you can still understand him perfectly. you don't need his backstory to understand who he is, because he simply is. and akira has given us ample content to know who wataru is, despite being so hard to grab onto.
Anon: um ive seen popular theories (not hc, but sometimes is headcanons) that Nagisa is autistic or is somewhere on the spectrum. i know some of his stories as a 2nd year suggest this, but is there anything in !! era that supports this theory? >.< ik a lot of charas in enstars are suggested to be neurodivergent but Nagisa interests me alot ^_^
crossposted from twitter
hello! i think the theories and headcanons certainly hold credence, and reading into his character you can very certainly come to that conclusion. as for in-text evidence, i don't believe there's anything on the same level as other neurodivergent characters such as shu or makoto or midori (aka, there isn't anything explicitly stating that he's autistic).
if i had to guess, i would imagine he was based around the concepts of feral children such as genie, of course with a twist since nagisa wasn't raised in total isolation. feral children tend to develop any number of developmental issues which can lead to physical and mental disabilities.
nagisa's backstory has a lot in common with these feral, so i would think akira spent some time looking into these case studies to develop his character—of course that's unconfirmed, since the only in-text statement about this is that he was isolated as a child (though not completely), and there's been minimal concrete speculation about any developmental issues he might have experienced as a result.
of course there is stuff like sora's interpretation of his color (being transparent) and hiyori's speculation of his past in autumn live, and more subtle traits like his broken speech patterns in his second year and his continued hesitance with speech, but i wouldn't exactly consider that to be in line with the scientific research done on feral child case studies, at least not so much so as to say this is Confimed (tm).
ANYWAY the tl;dr is that no, as far as i know there is no in-text evidence to suggest that nagisa is autistic, at least on the same level of explicitness as other canonically or mostly-canonically neurodivergent characters. there IS a lot of evidence to suggest autistic traits in nagisa, which can be read into with relative ease. and a lot of these traits are likely due to what i assume is nagisa being a take on the feral child, where the mental disabilities that feral children develop have a lot of overlap with autistic traits.
i'm not a psychologist though and i'm far from an expert on either of these experiences so this is just. a very surface-level talk about what might have been intended, knowing what i know about how neurodivergent traits often overlap between various different types of neurodivergence and mental illness and disability.
Anon: i'd like to ask if you happen to know the reason why wataru's hair changed from a purple ombre (like in his Thoroughly to The Core or Stage Clown cards in Ensemble Stars!) to a blue ombre?
crossposted from twitter
hello! he doesn't like, say the reason for this change in canon, but wataru does change his appearance for the roles he takes on (i'm… like 80% sure he stated this specifically in canon, i think it was to eichi, but i'm a little braindead atm and can't remember which story it was in, so sorry) and so the change in his hair would represent him taking on his new role as eichi's bluebird of happiness/jester! i've actually touched on this before in another post.
but ultimately, i think wataru changing his hair is supposed to be a visual metaphor for how he changed between his second and third year at yumenosaki :) and in-universe, it's meant to be symbolic of the new role he's taken up! something to fit with the image of his new status in fine, something that aligns better with the role he's to carry out. stuff like that.
(if you wanted to really read into it, you could say that he went with the blue ombre because it's representative of the blue bird of happiness. this is deeper analysis though, and might not have been intended by the writers. but it's really delicious to think about imo…!)
hhhhhhopefully this helps! tl;dr his reason isn't stated in canon, but you can infer it based on how he acts and who he is as a person \o/
this is an analysis of the music video for turbulent storm; it has no bearing on the actual contents of the corresponding story, as it was written prior to big ocean's release.
if you want to know my (extensive) thoughts on where 2wink is headed, you can check this post first for context.
ok so first the clips are noncolored now, which is cool bc it does show that they have less of a need to differentiate themselves. they're no longer "two in one" and their individuality can be seen at a glance, so they no longer need that external "tell" for themselves.
but what i really want to point out tho is on hinata's hair. the 3 oddballs, not the 5 oddballs, during the war all had bangs in the center of their forehead. kanata in specific has a little strand that comes down across his face in the same direction hinata's does in this card.
kanata is also the one who lost that center strand when changing his hairstyle from war era to ! era. this connects back to my little analysis about the changing hairstyles where i pointed out that the 3 oddballs are the only ones who changed his hair.
hairstyles themselves often signify changes in their narrative roles (unless the relevant story isn't written by akira, those are sometimes just used for aesthetics i'm noticing)... which is why the three oddballs changed their hair after the war, because their roles became different (while shu and natsume clung to their anger and couldn't get over themselves). wataru changes his hair the most which makes sense bc he says he changes it for every role he plays. i think this is an interesting thing to note in particular because hinata didn't cut his hair or grow it out: it's not a permanent change, unlike yuuta's, which means he can still restyle it. it could be an indication that this is a Role he's assuming like wataru. if you compare the three oddballs: kanata cuts his hair, bc he takes a full leap into humanity. but rei and wataru don't cut their hair or alter it in any permanent way, because both of them wear masks and adopt personas, and therefore they can switch between personas freely as demanded of them. see: eccentric.
so compared to yuuta, hinata's hairstyle change is more like wataru and rei's, where it's a "role" he's taking on—or at least it could be. meanwhile yuuta is more similar to kanata because it's more permanent. the interesting thing to note tho is that yuuta grows it out, which, when "cutting" the hair symbolizes growth into humanity, "growing it out" could by contrast symbolize regression, aka a growth into monstrosity.
hair done. cards now.
so i like how hinata is falling in this card. no idea what it means, but it's nice symbolism to indicate a more metaphorical fall. i don't have much to say on this bc i'm not great at analyzing visual art, but the fact that both hinata and yuuta's cards are making Evil Faces really appeals to me. hinata's expression does also feel like something leo would make. it also kind of looks similar to the expression rei makes during the crossroad live, but hinata's is significantly more unhinged so i don't think that was intentional.
leo, tho, is very apparent. leo is also a genius who additionally showed up in hinata's fs1 story. shrugs.
cards done.
so the outfits are interesting. i like that the sash has a sun on the end of it? and it looks eclipsed or whatever. again i'm not great at analyzing art. but the sun IS present, and that's important.
the brooch on their shirts also looks like a sun, and the gold accents are also nice sunny touches. there are two different types of blue, a more pure dark blue and a greener teal.
it all fits well with the next thing i'm going to say: if you look at the mv, there are three major elements: the moon, the ocean, and the sun. which is soooo interesting (twirls hair) because kanata is the ocean (susanoo), rei is the moon (tsukuyomi), and wataru is the sun (amaterasu).
the mv starts by illuminating them with the moon and it also ends with the moon in the backdrop. not to pull out setsubun festival fumbling in the dark 1 again, but to be "illuminated" by something often metaphorically means to achieve enlightenment through it.
if rei is the moon, then hinata and yuuta are achieving enlightenment from him. he offers hinata the tools for "enlightenment" in setsubun, and again in love letter; this feels like symbolism for that specifically. another thing i could point out is how the moon is like. between them in the beginning and the end, rather than behind them.
anyway moving on. there is a LOT of water in this mv and in their cards too. the tides, i guess, are influenced by the moon, so the two elements fit together. also the dark blue of their costumes can represent the darkness of night, aka rei and the moon, while the greener blues can represent the ocean, aka kanata. anyway the point here is that we have kanata and rei symbolism in the mv. but ALSO, halfway through the mv we get a lunar eclipse.
an eclipse is not only caused by the SUN, but this specific eclipse is not a total eclipse either. the band of the moon is still visible, so the sun is still shining on the moon to illuminate it. so even while the mv is bathed in darkness and an encompassing feeling of night, the sun is still visibly present and acting on the set. an aside, i think it’s really interesting that the three oddballs make up such an interesting cycle of nature: the sun illuminates the moon, the moon pulls the tides. how fun.
anyway what we see here in the end is that all three oddballs are present on stage through the sun, the moon, and the ocean. they’re also present in the costumes, which honestly feel much more dominated by the sun through the gold accents and the two depictions of the sun on the costumes (there are also three moons), so it seems to bring the sun more to the forefront to make up for its relative invisibility on stage. weirdly fitting for hinata’s breakaway song, so i am going to go ahead and say this is intentional because when you put all of this together it doesn’t really feel like much of a coincidence. i also like that the sun brooches are uh. light blue. y'know, like wataru. it kinda makes me feel sick but i’m totally fine i’m normal actually.
