#happyele doesnt deserve them

[konanyeh]

let's take custody of enstars characters as our collective ocs at this point

[natsmagi]

ok no i need to bitch because i have remained positive and hopeful throughout most of !!-era because i believed that happyele loved their characters and wouldnt deliberately go out of their way to butcher them but time and time again i have been proven wrong on this fact. and seeing the way theyre doubling down on having ibuki, a ryukyuan kid from okinawa, join a traditional "wa" japanese unit that embraces mainland japan traditions when the mainland has continuously tried to make okinawa theirs and disregard the ryukyuan identity WHILE ALSO LITERALLY HAVING EICHI COLONIZE OKINAWA IN ATLANTIS its all just becoming too much. I am no expert when it comes to these topics so do not take my word when it comes to jp culture, conflict and the likes, but knowing how poorly happyele has continuously time and time again treated their indigenous (or middle eastern in adonis's case) cast i cannot see this going well. Not to mention how having ibuki join akatsuki goes against everything the three of them have built up and the whole POINT of their unit and that for them to even fucking put this garbage in the story they had to make keito PAINFULLY ooc to pull it off because NO OTHER REALITY WOULD ALLOW IT!!!!! theyre taking akatsukis developments and throwing it out the window in an attempt to make them something "new" and more profitable while also using a beloved group that so many have spent so much of their time loving and supporting into nothing but a scapegoat for their imperialist propaganda im so unbelievably angry that theyre doubling down on this. im so angry that theyre stupid enough to let shit like this pass

and im sure youve probably read posts explaining the aktk thing better than i ever couldve, esp considering im not an aktkP, but im also writing this to tell the fans of big units to Stop Giving In. do not feel safe just because happyele is scared of losing you, because I used to be an undeadP before getting into switch and the reason i STOPPED producing them was because they viewed the unit as nothing but a money-maker machine and would completely disregard their developments for the sake of feeding into tropes that fans liked and they cared more about yaoibait than they did the characters themselves. They tossed out any growth rei and ritsu had in opperetta for the sake of bringing back sakuma brothers conflict in that painfully annoying la mort story and theyre gonna keep doing this shit until fans tire of it. valkyrie, eden and knights are three super popular units with upcoming events, and i seriously need you to not give happyele any of your time or money because they do not deserve it.

even with switch, a rather unpopular unit, theres been total garbage pulled. in switchs case i think its safe to say that akira does genuinely really care for natsume and tsumugis relationship considering thats basically all that man even includes in his switch stories, but he never really knows what to do with sora. And i feel like he doesnt really care. Like sure i can sit here and be like "well at least MY favs seem to be doing alright" but thats purely because they keep spoon-feeding us crumbs of the units popular ships so we wont complain. i still really like their dynamic and i strongly disagree with alot of fans saying natsume and tsumugi have been OOC lately, but like. Look at sora man. i dont mind him having a little gf in the virtual world, i dont mind him growing more independent, i dont mind him relying less on his synesthesia. but the executions are just. Theyre painful. with the synesthesia thing esp bc synesthesia doesnt just go away. You couldve easily made a simple point of "you cant always rely on your synesthesia to know how people feel" because that is TRUE! but that would de-fetishize this idea these people have of synesthesia being some Magical Ability and not just a neurological condition. And with the sora being more independent; this is also something thats been needed for his story! natsume and tsumugi would often coddle him way too much, and sora himself would complain about being treated as a kid. But like. sora has started to feel so disconnected from switch in a way.....? and this has even been a point of conflict in stories, sora not knowing how to partake in ntmgs conversations because theyre too difficult, or being sad that ntmg never have time to hang out with him. But instead of working on these things, they just. keep having sora hang out with people outside of natsume and tsumugi? who have practically become a package deal at this point?? literally having sora join a NEW UNIT without natsume or tsumugi????????? i dont know. im rambling but i just wanted to get this out there. Theyre my specialest guys in the whole entire world and i just want to make people more cautious of thinking "well the aktk thing wouldnt happen to MY fav unit! they wouldnt butcher MY favs!" because they very much can. even if theres an aspect youre still hooked on, other factors are visibly crumbling because management cares only about what will bring the most revenue, and not what is best for the character

i cant help but feel the reason theyre pulling this shit with akatsuki is because they felt as though they somewhat got away with it with Double Face and raked in some extra cash because kohaku ended up popular, so now theyre doing that again but taking it to the next extreme. its disheartening

anyway. i will continue to draw and enjoy ensemble stars. But i wont be supporting them financially anymore as they clearly do not care about fans at all. if i desperately want some merch ill just buy it second-hand. And while im at it, i need you people to stop telling enstarries to get into some other idol franchise instead as if the main problem here isnt how disgustingly predatory they are. Happy Elements were THE biggest joseimuke franchise, making the most money out of all their competitors, and it still wasnt enough. they still didnt respect their fans. when the fans would continuously respect their wishes. Enstars is like the only fandom ive seen that doesnt share leaks for example, yet this courtesy means nothing to them. Corporations arent your friends, never have been and never will be. those characters arent real, they do not have feelings of their own. They were all written by someone to serve a purpose, and this includes ibuki being an indigenous kid joining the wa japanese culture unit. To use this popularity to spread so much fucking bigotry and hatred is heartbreaking. And to blame the fans for being upset over it????????????? youre disgusting happyele.

[mihai-florescu]

Reading your enstars instagram post and man. I am so sorry. I am glad you can still find comfort in the old stories, i know i do. (Atp enstars only exists in the internet archives to me lol). Like you said, not everything after !-era is bad but damn if it hasn't been getting steadily worse. Awful to see something you once loved and held dear morphing into something else entirely. Not gonna lie, i'm almost scared to keep up with any stories releasing after this considering how much they have already made it obvious that they don't care. I don't wanna see the story get butchered anymore than this.

Unfortuantely, they probably won't go eos until they've milked every last penny out of the franchise. By that point i think enstars will be unrecognizable compared to what it had been in the past.

My only hope is that i've seen people specualting that this event wasn't written by akira and if that's the case i do hope akira manages to fight back and get his story back.

Also hi this is cookie btw i just moved bc i can't look at my enstars blog for the mean time

Hii, ive actually been talking about this all day with various friends, some more some less involved in enstars... i think it's everyone's right to distance themselves from something that doesnt spark joy anymore and has let them down. I will focus my reads on mostly ! era stuff but until it shuts down i will keep an eye out on the releases. I cant imagine a world where enstars is still going and i dont at least know the overview of whats going on.

As youve been on twt too, im sure you mightve seen that some of the critiques people are bringing now just to jump on the Hating Everything Enstars are stupid. Im thinking about the buddhism and christianity tweet in particular coming from someone who genuinely seems like they havent read many stories lawl. Theres a difference between actual problems and personal dissatisfactions that things arent the way you want them to be for various personal reason. People should learn their singular experience isnt universal, and characters in a story dont aim to speak for a universal experience either. It's not bad writing for a hidden christian in japan to behave differently from a canadian one, or for eichi to joke around with his childhood friend who happens to be buddhist. Anyway. I will always defend the parts of enstars i think were genuinely good, even if im getting worse at expressing myself in speech.

Anyhow... i dont want to speculate on internal problems but i really do wonder how much of this current direction was akira's choice and how much was happyele. He is no longer one of the only 2 writers (and main one, at that), i wouldnt be surprised if he doesnt have as much influence anymore. We know that in the beginning of es2 he expressed concern that everyone in happyele is insane...lol. He's not a perfect writer but the soul of enstars was brought by him.

Well, as i said, i dont want to speculate anything. I wish to not see so much negativity even on things that dont deserve hate, but ive always had issues with other fans' uninformed reactions. That'll never change even as enstars self destructs more and more. I can hold contempt for both the company and such fans, while treasuring the meaningful parts of the story and its impact on my life going forward too♡ ah my dear story that shouldve been a niche vn with a cult following of few but passionate fans instead of a gacha game gone stale disappointing old fans in pursuit of new ones with gimmicky shock writing...