Model 32. A tribute to Hajime Sorayama. Acrylic on illustration board.
Another piece from last year done from scratch where I used the same painting techniques Mr. Sorayama utilizes to create his iconic illustrations, quite a laborious task, but so damn satisfying.
Fandom Shipping Polls 2025 - Sora Takenouchi Shipping Analysis (Poll I + Poll II)
As pointed out in the main post, every single Chosen Child will get their individual analysis post to check on the status of the current popularity of their ships. We’re gonna take a look at Sora here - if you are interested in the results of 2023, feel free to check out the previous analysis.
With that out of the way, let’s get started!
The overall results / spreadsheet
Disclaimer: As the “Someone from Poll 1″ and “Someone from Poll 2″ option have been excluded from the final analysis due to redundancy reasons and all results were culminated in another “final count”, the results will not be 1:1 to what the polls look like:
Overall votes: 115 (approx. 74 after excluding votes for “Someone from Poll 1” and “Someone from Poll 2” from the complementary poll). The main poll received 69 votes, and the secondary poll received 46 votes.
The comments/tags did not provide a choice that wasn’t specifically mentioned in the polls themselves.
Ship Analysis
Disclaimer: Sora is among the characters who don’t have viable “other” choices outside of the main (+ movie) characters. Additionally, she was the character who received the least votes overall (after Miyako and Jou), which doesn’t give a lot of variety to her results.
1st Place: While the overall results of the 2025 polls were mostly synonymous with the results from the 2023 polls, this one was the biggest difference: At the start, Taichi and Yamato were pretty much equal (as they both turned out as winners in the 2023 poll), but through the mid-point of the voting time, Yamato (38%) took over and won by quite a margin of over 10% before Taichi. Both ships, Yamato/Sora and Taichi/Sora, obviously, have very valid reasons to be here, which are highly supported by canon in one way or another. Yamato is the complementary soul, mirroring and understanding Sora’s struggles, enabling her to make her own choices for once (in more than one way). Despite continuous ship teasing - or trying to play it neutral - in Tri onwards, canon let her choose Yamato in the end. And even after all this time, both him and Taichi are naturally considered to be the most viable options in their respective fandom corners.
2nd Place: Taichi finished as the obvious runner-up with 24% of the overall votes. He is the “childhood football friend”, one complementary soul that went through thick and thin with Sora throughout their adventure, fueling each other’s development. And just as elaborated before, it's not too outlandish to consider that, after more than 25 years, he is still consistently among the most plausible shipping choices, with very dedicated fanbases and fanwork events in various internet fandom spheres.
3rd Place: After the two top options, there has been quite a gap - but just like in 2023, Mimi (15%) proudly claims the third spot. And again, it is no surprise that she’s considered viable - both Sora and Mimi went through quite a development together, with Sora starting off as the steady rock to protect Mimi at first, just for Mimi to grow up to become a steady rock to encourage and support Sora herself, with a looooot of physical closeness and gentle affirmation on both sides.
Niche Ships (“Honorary mentions”): Three characters may be mentioned here that actually managed to clip the infamous 5% mark: namely, Jou, Koushiro and Meiko - as well as the "others" option, suggesting a tendency to ship her outside of the familiar cycle as well. Jou/Sora are widely considered to be “The Dad and The Mom” of the group and both of them also struggle with their sense of obligation and making choices, which may be the reason they’re considered compatible. Koushirou/Sora can be considered very niche, but may have some leg to stand on due to them being the red-headed support squad for Taichi (and Yamato). Sora/Meiko had valid screen- and bonding time in Tri, bonding over their sense of obligation and failures, thus justifying their appeal.
Rarepair Hell (“The 1 vote squad”): Interestingly enough, only the “No Ship (asexual/Ace)” option received a singular vote here.
No audience (“0 votes go to…”): The entirety of the 02 squad received 0 votes on her polls, namely Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, Ken, Miyako and Iori - once again underlining her lack of screentime and interaction in the second season of Digimon Adventure. (Notably, in the 2023 votes, Daisuke received a few honorary votes as opposed to Miyako, with whom she had central episodes.)
What did the other polls say?
Sora is one of the characters who hasn’t won any other poll - but she did come in second for Yamato (21%) and third for Taichi (16%) and Mimi (11%, tying there with Meiko). Thus, she is mirroring her own results at least to some degree, despite the low sample size.
In Jou’s poll, she was more of a rare choice, but she at least passed the 5% mark with 6%.
Thus, for the majority of the rest, she was merely a niche choice, such as Koushiro (2%), Takeru (1%), Miyako (1%) and Iori (1%).
She received 0 votes in the polls for Hikari, Daisuke and Ken - so neither of them received a mutual vote.
Notable additions / comments / thoughts
Sora’s polls have been quite a matter of extremes - on one hand, she received a comparably low number of votes in general. But that, on the other hand, caused very clear results to happen. It’s not much of a surprise to see her two most popular and most visible choices (in canon and fandom) in first and second place. Especially, since the Taichi/Sora vs. Yamato/Sora debate has been going on for decades already. With the influx of Yamato voters this year (as mentioned in his own analysis), the main difference to the 2023 results is that Yamato received more votes than Taichi this time. Thus, Yamato/Sora overshadowed basically every other choice besides Taichi/Sora and, to a lesser degree, Sora/Mimi, resulting in the less obvious ships not getting much attention at all. Jou/Sora may be named as an honourable mention as the "Dad/Mom" niche ship at least.
On an interpretative level, Sora’s status of being “the mom/big sister” of the group as well as her general absence in most pieces of media may have contributed to her not being as visible in the votes. She may have taken care of the others in a loving way and is very persistent in doing so in the early parts of Adventure, but with her lack of screen- and interaction time, her character may be perceived less and less through a shippable and more through a platonic lense.
The comments in the tags have only referred to the already mentioned choices (such as Jou), but also implied a minor interest in shipping partners outside of the group. The low sample size - and the one vote for the “No Ship (asexual/Ace)” option - would support the idea mentioned above that she's not exactly considered as a shippable partner - outside of the obvious "main 2 (3, if you squint)". OC characters, however, weren't mentioned at all.
