#im super excited for whip the wimp girl in case you couldn't tell

[kiennjio]

An Shiraishi and her feelings

So, the Singing in Sync event was how An realised she didn't view Kohane as her equal so she got too protective of her and tried to shield her from mistakes which ended up disrupting their dynamics early on, but what if those feelings weren't An thinking she was more superior than Kohane, but her starting to realise that Kohane had a lot more hidden potential than she originally thought? Which resulted her in being afraid that she'll get left behind and be alone again once Kohane truly blossoms, so to prevent that from happening she subconsciously started stepping in to "help" Kohane and stop her from learning and thus growing and progressing in her skills? Yet she and everyone else mistakenly thought it was An not truly thinking of Kohane as her partner as no one knew at that time that An has anxiety and insecurity issues as she was always so confident especially in her singing.

In that sense An's anxiety and feelings of insecurity had actually appeared way before Bout for Beside You and mainly stemmed from An's environment growing up in Vivid Street and Nagi, both of which were explained in further detail in Vivid Old Tale. All her life, An has been praised and noticed for simply being Ken's daughter and all of them compared An to Nagi, which made An want to become even more like Nagi since it made people happy (and that's what she wanted right?). To the point that An actively tries to imitate Nagi to the best of her abilities ― her mannerisms, personality, and singing style ― which ultimately led her to where she is now, struggling to find her own sound because she had forgotten that she wasn't Nagi, and that means that her singing style would be different from hers. An's feelings of frustration, helplessness, everything, are what will truly make her stand out because her experiences are what makes her so unique, and to fully utilize that potential she has to sing with those feelings, like she did in Resonant Town (which Shiho picked up on). Hopefully Whip the Wimp Girl will show An finally embracing her own singing style and breaking away from Nagi's shadow, because thats the only way she can surpass rad weekend in my opinion.

As for An's and Kohane's relationship, it's actually still quite unstable although they have been partners for about a year already. They haven't seemed to form complete trust between them, which makes sense since they didn't get much of a chance to work together as a pair before forming VBS unlike Akito and Touya. Considering An thinks that her entire identity is 'being Nagi', she would definitely feel like it was being ripped from her after Kick it Up a Notch when Kohane was almost good enough to reach Nagi's level. If she wasn't Nagi, then who was she? An feeling lost and as if she didn't belong in VBS (since RADder had Nagi, Ken and Taiga which she thinks of as Kohane, Touya and Akito) is a given. An definitely doesn't want to feel jealous of and inferior to Kohane, and is probably guilty that she feels that way at all, since they were supposed to be partners and not rivals. Facing it head on may be the only way An will realise that Kohane wasn't going to leave her just because of that and start forming that unbreakable bond of trust between them.