#(When I read the Hitoya fanart tweet I can hear it in Hitoya's voice even though that soul swap was years ago now...)

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

To a Festival on a Summer Evening (夏の宵に縁日へ) Alt. Stream

Reference images here. If you like this, then you can see similar content on this Google doc.

Rei: Hyottoko mask. A mask of a male character, as opposed to the female otafuku. The character plays the role of a clown (fitting for a member of DH). Apparently named as such because the mouth looks like it’s breathing fire.

Ichiro: Kitsune mask. Kitsune have various connotations in Japan, but outside the festival setting, this one’s a bit of an odd choice, since Sasara has more fox connotations than Ichiro (Sasara has what are called kitsune no me).

Ramuda: Rabbit mask. A pretty uncommon type of mask, in comparison to the kitsune, hyottoko and otafuku masks. Also cute, childish and pink to go with his colour scheme. (Update: Also harmless-seeming, as well as going with his "pyon pyon pyon!" - most notably from Drops - and his calling of "Usa-pyon" to Jyuto.)

At first, I thought Rei's was the only mask of particular note (particularly because Rei's speaker has a phoenix, which is represented by fire), but there are also some interesting connotations with Ichiro's kitsune mask - some kitsune can breathe fire, there is the concept of kitsunebi (fox fire) and some festivals have special fires.

The toffee apple in Ramuda's hand also has a fire element - through the melted sugar which comprises the toffee - and...well, it's red.

BB's theme colour is red and red is usually the colour used to represent fire (see: the ancient Chinese 5 element theory behind Saburo's 3rd solo). Also, red and yellow - BB and FP's theme colours respectively - make orange, or DH's theme colour.

On top of that, within ARB, all 3 of these characters were present during the fireworks event which is featured during this Alt. Stream (across both parts) and in the manga, Ramuda's senpai of sorts is called Hanabi. (Although the kanji used for Hanabi's name are roughly "flower light/lamp" - the second character of which can be read tomoshibi in other contexts, like the MTR song - the usual kanji for "fireworks" literally translates to "flower fire".)

(Sidenote: In terms of words, the word meaning "festival" (縁日) includes the character 縁 (enishi), which is the name of a DH song. Indeed, this kanji combo is read ennichi.)

(Then again, this fanart reminded me Hitoya also has fox associations, since he was possessed by the nine tailed fox in one of the soul swaps...)