Any headcanons of your favorite enstars characters? 👀💫
I do indeed nonnie! Though tbh, these are kind of full-cast headcanons lol. Tysm for the ask 😊
Mika is still upset he wasn't included in the Sanrio collab, and angrily sewed plushies the entire day it was announced.
During practice for Artistic Partisan, Hiiro was under the impression that the prop spears were much heavier than they actually were, leading to him accidentally slamming one through the wall (and nearly impaling Shu).
We don't talk enough about how Knights are given swords for their performances. Like who thought this was a good idea. Even if they are dull and fake, do you know how terrifying it is to have Ritsu Sakuma come at you with a sword and a maniacal grin? Kaoru Hakaze does.
Kuro was basically acting as a mediator for the entirety of the Yuukyou Seishunka cover rehearsals (while Mika and Souma prayed their unit leaders wouldn't kill each other). Keito and Shu came to feel kinda bad about this as they were winding down, so they begrudgingly worked together to make him a gi, as a thank you and apology. Keito never wants to hear the words "proper quilter's knot" again, but it was worth it for the smile on Kuro's face.
Hiiro and Hinata both have...shaky histories with high places (Hiiro in !! main story after Rinne disowns him, and Hinata during Setsubun). Niki doesn't know the details, but he notices after a while, so they start having rooftop hang-outs on occasion to help them with it.
I really like the Hiiro-Hinata-Niki dorm as a whole actually (which...Hiiro and Hinata are two of my favs, and Niki's up there, so that's to be expected lol). I see a lot of potential with the three, and I think they'd really get each other.
Ibara visited Kaname once. It was a stupid and sentimental thing to do, really, and he had work that needed to be done, lives to prepare for...but he couldn't help but feel he owed it to him, the near-silent apology that passed his lips that day.
Also, veering into AU territory a bit, but I think if Kaname were to wake up and eventually get back into the industry (after lots of rehab + accommodations), he'd keep the HiMERU name, but drop the "cool" persona he tried to associate with it. Life is too short to care so much about the public's perception of him, and I feel he'd go in the opposite direction of Tatsumi, and become even more outspoken, which would make him a good Crazy:B candidate.
OreMERU (our HiMERU) and Kaname are going to need to talk. A lot. I think Kaname wouldn't quite forgive him and would be upset about the identity theft, but he also can't bring himself to hate him, as he can see why he did it and knows it's for him. There's a lot of guilt and misunderstanding on both sides (ntm Tatsumi, Jun, and everyone else's reactions), but I think they eventually get through it alright, and OreMERU would always be Kaname's "Onii-chan".
OreMERU is also gonna have an identity crisis, and tries to quit Crazy:B, but of course Rinne, Niki, and Kohaku aren't gonna let him just dip like that. There's a lot of panicking, some bad hairstyle decisions, but he comes out alright, and starts going by another stage name that's important to him in some way.
I'm sorry about the excessive Tojo headcanons nonnie, I fully read Obbligato for the first time last week (just knew the basics before) and it wrecked me asdfghjkl.
Anyways. Back to everyone else.
As Mika gets used to Shu's more lenient personality, he tries to see how much gore he can get away with in Valkyrie's art.
Shu tries so hard to respect Mika's artistic vision and encourage him, he really does. But he draws the line at real pigs brains on-stage, even if they are in jars ("But Oshi-san, it represents the breakin' o' the mind after they tried so hard ta conform ta the expectations they put on 'em and ended up slaughtered! It's perfect symbolism, ain't it?")
Adonis makes money on the side for Undead by acting as an interpreter for other units during lives and Q&As. It ends up so popular and profitable that ES actually ends up investing money in professional interpreters for all events, because the ES heads can be kind of good people for once I guess. As a treat.
Rei, Ritsu, Niki, Tatsumi, Eichi, and Kaname (if he rejoins the industry) start having a combined monthly interview to make up for ones they miss due to illness/disability. The college kids/anyone that's been sick or couldn't make their own interviews occasionally join in too (usually Chiaki, Mayoi, Nazuna, Shu, Leo, and Izumi). Rei feels personally attacked sometimes, but its overall fun and way less stressful than trying to make every interview for their own units.
Kuro/Shu/Mao/Izumi dorm have sewing nights. It started because Kuro and Shu already sew, and Izumi wanted to be able to make his own alterations as a model just in case. Mao ended up joining in as a way to de-stress from student council work, and they have a relatively pleasant time together.
Souma is canonically good at embroidery, so I like to think he ends up creating his own sword scabbards for different Akatsuki costumes using the skills he's picked up from it. They're very pretty, and he's very proud of them.
Where did you find the full tl for Ibuki? Not doubting you (HappyEle is notorious for mishandling minorities), but I've only been able to find bits and pieces for the new characters
The tl I read for Ibuki wasn't his idol story (I don't think that's been fully tled yet), it was his profile, sorry for the confusion! I should have worded that better 🙏
MireiArchive had this rough tl for his profile, which matches up with the machine tl of "Born in Okinawa, and raised in America" (though you should always take machine tls with several handfuls of salt, I believe this one is accurate, as it matches up with the info provided by other translators).
They also provided a rough overview of his idol story, during which the incidents that are being talked about take place.
We know this part of the rough overview of the story is accurate due to being confirmed by several sources (the jp and eng fandoms are talking about it quite a bit).
These parts specifically are the ones where he claims to experience discrimination due to being Okinawan or American (any foreigners face potential discrimination due to a homogeneous society). The first two kanji after the question mark in the first screenshot is the word for "Okinawa" (I'd screen record this part, but unfortunately my phone's audio quality is abysmal 🙃).
Getting a bit into Okinawa's history, the Ryukyuan people are native to the Ryukyu Islands (part of which make up modern-day Okinawa), and they were annexed by the Empire of Japan during the Meiji Era. As Japan did with other ethnic groups, such as the Ainu, the vast majority of the Ryukyuan people were stripped of their culture and forced to assimilate. During WWII, after America invaded Okinawa, the US occupied them for several decades, and there are still US military bases there that are a topic of strong debate, due to their environmental, cultural, and political impacts. Ibuki's family likely has ties to America due to these past events (many Ryukyuans have immigrated to Hawaii in particular, due to it being a straight shot across the Pacific, something which started in the early 1900s).
After WWII, Ryukyuans supported Japan more strongly due to increased resentment towards Americans, causing a further decline of people who spoke Ryukyuan languages (the vast majority speak standard Japanese, like Ibuki) and other aspects of their culture. Ryukyuans are now mostly split between the Okinawa and Kagoshima prefectures. "Okinawan" as a term has become one meant specifically to refer to the Ryukyuans (Wikipedia and other places have great sources for further info on these topics), which Ibuki is.
Therefore, we come to the current discussion around Ibuki's identity and what that means for his writing going forward.
(Tweet from mika_enstars discussing it, a well-known livetweeter and translator)
Overall, I'm hoping Akira has learned his lesson from the Amagis (and Adonis, while we're at it) and that the poor writing choices will be few and far between this time around, discounting this story, though of course I won't exactly be holding my breath. We'll have to wait and see until more stories drop, but yeah, that's the gist of the situation!
Hi hi!! Did you read the valkyrie climax event? What are your thoughts on it? Do you think it was a good development for Valkyrie as a unit (and for shumika)? 🤔
Hi!!! It's lovely to see you again :)
So originally this post started off with a Le temps des fleurs analysis...that got so long that rather than subject everyone to a five page post, I've decided I'll post separately in the future lol.
But yes, I have read through Raison D'etre! To be honest, I don't think this post will be able to sum up all my thoughts, but I'll try to hit the important parts!
I feel that first I need to define what, to me, makes a good climax event. A good climax event, by my personal definition, ties up loose threads of the current storyline, addresses built-up conflicts with good pacing and in-character reactions, and resolves the current story thread of the unit while still allowing many more narratives to be weaved in the future. So far, of the other units we've gotten climax events of (fine, Crazy:B, Ra*bits, Double Face, and as of recently, 2wink), I think this has all been done fairly well - a couple character slip-ups, a few pacing issues here and there, a shoved-in conflict or two - but ultimately, they did their job, and I came away feeling fairly satisfied by their current conclusions.
I think I also need to state that I do not expect, nor frankly want, all of the character's issues and relationships to come away squeaky clean and unproblematic. I'm always for development of course (Neverland's garbage talk made me sob over how far Shu and Mika have come), but ultimately, this game is about a bunch of screwed-up kids in an exploitative industry, and how they navigate it while facing their own personal issues. Like other gacha games, from otomes like Obey Me to fellow joseimukes like Twisted Wonderland, the end goal is not to make the characters perfect, or even relatively good people. It's to weave a satisfying narrative, something that hooks and engages people. And while I will be the first to say the Enstars writing is not always "good" and can be riddled with problems, I still see a lot of potential in it and ultimately enjoy it, which is why I'm writing this.
I'm happy to say that Valkyrie did not break the pattern of satisfying climax events for me, and in fact, has come away as my favorite of them thus far. I readily admit that bias does in fact play a factor in my enjoyment - as it did with 2wink's and I'm sure it will when Alkaloid's drops - but I truly did feel that Valkyrie's climax event was incredibly satisfying for both of them.
So, onto the story!
Some of my favorite bits:
Shu defending Nazuna's autonomy was so asdfghjkl 😭 GODDAMN that hit me right in the feels! I liked that despite Nazuna being part of the event, the writing didn't try to dredge up ex-valk issues, and instead used Nazuna as a person close to them in order to forward their development, rather than as an angst tool, if that makes sense? He also seems to be doing a lot better since Ra*bits climax (poor man finally caught a break), so good for him! Also, Mika gaining weight! He is finally eating properly 🥺 I'm so proud.
Ok, so adding onto the above, initially the Kuro-Nazuna crossdressing subplot made me wary since I was afraid enstars was backtracking into some of its more...iffy writing choices (*stares at Poltergeist*). However, after reading the story through, I can safely say that the way it ties back into the theme was good, and ultimately, neither Kuro nor Nazuna exhibited any behavior that impacted my enjoyment of the story (+ this thread addressing issues people had with Kuro here, because my dude was getting attacked when this dropped).
Instead of "haha man in a dress", it showed a good progression of attitudes with old vs new era and Japan vs West that I felt was explored pretty thoughtfully, and the way Shu and Mika honored that by having such gnc stage costumes was very lovely! Kuro and Nazuna's good reactions to it also showed how much more open-minded they were as compared to Shu's grandfathers era, and also showed a reflection of enstars own writing changes between ! and !! era (ex. Koga and Subaru dropping their slur usage towards Arashi, Kaoru being more thoughtful towards Adonis's background, etc). I'm not trying to be a suck-up to the writers, since there is some stuff they've written that is...less than lovely. However, I don't think this situation was one of them, and overall, it tied back into Shu's journey well.
One scene I really want to talk about is the foie gras conversation because that was just!!! so!!! It's a very small scene in the grand scheme of things, but I thought it showed their development really well (Raelyn get new phrases challenge lol), so I wanted to mention it here! Mika wants to try foie gras, and Shu is like "why. it's gross and inhumane and there are so many better foods" which is totally fair (foie gras is often inhumanely created). However, Mika doesn't automatically apologize and back down like he would in the past, stating that he knows, but he still finds it interesting. Shu also does not shut Mika down; he states that maybe at another time, though he sticks to his own boundaries of not having it himself.
What I really like about this scene on Shu's end (and his relationship with Mika as a whole) is that he does not regress into treating Mika like he did Nazuna; he does not try to insist that Mika is perfect and should not soil himself with such indelicacies, nor does he put him on a pedestal and automatically throw out his own opinions for Mika (essentially, treating him as Mika treated him). Shu truly treats him as an equal here, by stating his own opinion and having an open and meaningful conversation with Mika, getting his view on it without completely sacrificing his own thoughts. Mika, in turn, does not treat Shu's words as gospel, nor does he feel the need to plead his case; the conversation is entirely casual, a mere exchange between partners, but its so important because its one of the first times they've demonstrated that they've made it to this point. The whole thing is wrapped very nicely in a bow by Shu creating something with a similar taste and texture to foie gras to give Mika a similar experience, without having to cook the actual thing - its a great compromise both are satisfied with, and gives us a look into how their current art and performances are being created.
(Translations below by mika_enstars)
Shu's whole-hearted acceptance of Mika also comes back into play during the grave-robbing aftermath, which is something I have a lot of thoughts on, so I'll save it for a separate post.
Getting into what blew every enstars fan's mind, time to discuss the very queer themes of Raison D'etre. This shocked me when the translations first came out - I think the closest we've EVER gotten to this amount of explicit rep was Beasts and Pretty Mission, and even those can be argued for different interpretations, though I feel their text is pretty clear. Lots of queer fans (including me) gravitate to Valkyrie, and enstars as a whole tbh, for good reason - lots of their story aspects can be considered queer, from Shu's feminine interests and subsequent bullying, Nazuna feeling "trapped" by ex-Valk's expectations, and Mika's alt interests and unwavering devotion.
The doll plot was confusing as hell lol, but I get why it was done in such a convoluted manner, since it was supposed to be left up to interpretation, and force Shu and Mika to come to their own conclusions. Shu's grandfather deliberately set it up in such a way that Shu would be forced to weave the story he wants, and in doing so, accept the parts of himself he had hidden away - a fairly thin parallel to his grandfather's queer youth.
However, the difference here is that Shu does not plan on hiding, he does not plan on bundling away his feelings in a neat little box (or journal, in this case), and leaving them behind. In Antique Legend, we see that Shu's grandfather clearly tried to conform to what was expected of him, and impart those same values onto Shu - though Shu never fully stuck to those principles in favor of forging his own path, which I think his grandfather was secretly proud of him for.
(Antique Legend: Dumps of Dreams, Ep 8)
Shu internally monologues about how different his grandfather's time and the current one he lives in are, and how things are evolving in such a way that he can stand on stage without the ridicule his grandfather may have faced. This, along with the ending of "Let's live together happily, Kagehira" as an ode to his grandfather's dreams, really does read like a love story to me, especially the part right before where Mika compares the love Shu's grandmother has for his grandfather as the same love Shu has for him - which Shu doesn't deny.
A couple other things to wrap up:
I found it so interesting how Mika and Shu had different takes on his grandfather's life, and trying to unravel the truth was both fun and a chore and a half for me lol. All in all, the audience isn't meant to know fully, but I think Mika's theory might hold a bit more water (Shu's grandfather being gnc and dating the landlady), since he had extra info and is bffs with Naru, giving him a bit more insight. However, I can definitely see why Shu went with his theory of "grandpa had many different male lovers in his youth", as not only is it the one that does not imply cheating, but it is a closer representation of how Shu feels, and I think that's what grandpa was trying to get at.
The use of "boku" and "ore" was also pretty good storytelling imo, and adds an extra layer of projection, since Shu uses "boku" while Mika uses "ore" in day-to-day life. "Boku" is also seen as politer and more formal, while "ore" is more casual and was at one point seen as crass, which reflected their story roles well!
The fact that Shu's grandfather just??? Fakes his death on a regular basis is???? So???? I can't even asdfghjkl. Kuro being like "yeah, I comforted him the first 5 times, but then I got kinda sick of it" is so funny too. I wonder if any of the rich enstars kids are gonna do this in the future, my money's on Eichi (for profit), Ritsu (for fun), or Hiyori (for drama) personally.
I know I said I wouldn't talk about it here, but the grave-robbing aftermath where Shu describes Mika as a fairy during their first meeting, as a contrast to how he had always described him as a ghost? That got me so good, especially since it's something so idealistic being used when Mika is currently cold and covered in dirt. It's just such wholehearted acceptance of his partner, it's so beautiful.
Anyways, I think I'll end it here, but again, thank you so much for the ask and patience Dia!!!
(Edit: accidentally included RYUSEITAI with the climax units, it's fixed now)
Thank you for that section on the wiki 🙏 you did him sm justice. Also yeah a lot of your points are so real.
Ah, you're welcome!!!! <3 As an AlkaP I am determined to do them all as much justice as I can whenever possible 🫡. I did see part of your post earlier bc people were excited the quick answers were working, so when I saw it on the dash I was like "oh, that's where it's from!"
I do want to extend a ton of thanks to everyone else who contributed as well, since adding all the quick answers for the qualifying pages (most popular characters visited) was very much a team process! One person first came up with and worded the question, I wrote the draft, someone else made a really good addition, I rewrote it to include it, someone else finally proofread and edited it to look good (I'm so longwinded that having some of it reworded improved it drastically), and then it was finally coded and published! Joining the wiki discord really gave me a new appreciation for how much time and effort is put into the wiki (the staff in particular are absolutely phenomenal at upkeep, additions, and helping out people new at it like me), so I wanted to acknowledge them!! I do recommend joining if you're curious since we're always looking for people who can help in any way or want to learn how, but no pressure ofc!! I just like plugging the wiki so we get more people lol-
And yeah, I have my own gripes and opinions with fandom, both in Enstars and out, though I do try to assume everyone has good intentions, and even if we disagree there's no reason not to keep civility! But I do stand by my points of character infantilization that you pointed out as well with Aira & Shinobu, esp with the Rtmo comparison (I love Rtmo a lot, I just feel like they get a pass in areas where other ships don't, which is weird as someone who's very "block and move on, I will not spend my hours arguing on the internet about ultimately inconsequential things" lol). It feels like Alkakurei kind of exist in a weird middle space between the old cast and now Hitsugi + 4piece, so there's some misconceptions that float about and get a very strong hold on fandom (no thanks to Engstars having weird translations sometimes); at least, that's my interpretation!
In the end though, the wiki does strive to be accurate and inform in as many aspects as possible, so I'm glad that we were able to do that for Mayo-chan! It makes me happy to know that his character will be more widely understood now 🥺
