#rinne is there for one screenshot

[ritsleep]

Today i present to u... Yuta and HiMERU ganging up on Rinne

[umilily]

I just woke up from a dream where I was applying for some sort of job or degree program and for the selection process I had to do math text problems about enstars. I can’t remember all of them but one was like “ibara is organising a cospro movie night. Factoring in the the total runtime of the movie as well as the to be expected distractions and delays, how long does he actually need to reserve a room for?” And a whole ass paragraph about something with hajime in a cookie commercial and the probability of how successful it will be / how many cookies will be sold be depending on the outfit choice or something.

[asherasgayagenda]

YOU GOT WWYS KOHAKU??? 😭 i kept pulling on that scout and like. got every single wwys featured card EXCEPT for kohaku

FR OH MY GOD?!?!?!? I GOT HIYORI MIKA AND IBARA SOOOO MANY TIMES . NO KOHAKU. i was abt to give up…. and then I was like NO we got kohaku’s greeting today i’m SURE we can get him!!!

…tadaaaa

[esanalysis]

HiMERU ESY2 Center - Ephemeral Festival Story Summary & Analysis

We've all see the live posts in regards to the new HiMERU center event. Everyone's been talking about it and I want to as well because boy do I have a LOT to talk about in regards to what we know about HiMERU, what we learnt about HiMERU, and all the misinformation that managed to spread around in some places. This one will be pretty long, however I hope this will clear misinformation up and make the story easier to consume.

Posted - September 6th, 2024

Edited - October 25th, 2024

Analysis Word Count - 3,508

Disclaimers and CW for this post are as follows;

- This is both a summary and an analysis of the story. I will somewhat briefly summarize what is happening and will add in my larger breakdowns of specifically HiMERU's actions and feelings here (as well as others if applicable/needed). - Later parts of this analysis will vaguely reference Obbligato and be talked about under the assumption there is at least a vague understanding of what happened during the event's story. If you have not read Obbligato, I highly recommend doing so. You can read the story here. - This will contain discussions and mentions of RPF and adult/minor relationships however in no regards will I be defending this. On top of this, I do not like Himekoha/Kohahime for reasons I do not think I need to get into. - Take some information with a grain of salt. At the time of writing this I am currently going off of live translations & other sources of information as no translations exist at the moment for this story. This may be edited in the future due to this. - Screenshots have been sourced from various live translations and put through Google Translate for clarity reasons and to show what I am talking about being in game. Take the direct translations with some salt because of this. - Usual disclaimers apply - see my pinned post for those. - If you would like to discuss or debate things I have come to the conclusion of, you can submit an ask!

With that in mind. Let's get started.

The opening starts out, put simply with us learning exactly what the "Pastel Bee Brothers" - shortened to "PBB" - is. PBB, in short, is a nickname for Kohaku and HiMERU due to growing popularity in the idol world separate from Rinne and Niki as well as Crazy:B as a whole. Despite this growth, the growth does not stem from anything good. It unfortunately stems from a piece of Real Person Fiction - "RPF" for short - that involves the romantic and sexual pairing of HiMERU and Kohaku that goes by the same name.

Despite this fact, we need to acknowledge two big things when it comes to the existence of RPF here. The first being, this is a real thing to happen. Ensemble Stars is not new to the concept of criticizing things that happen in both idol culture and the industry itself, albeit to varying levels of success. We can very clearly tell that this is what is happening here when we see HiMERU try to shield Kohaku from what it truly is. Kohaku does not understand what exactly the PBB fad stems from, aside from the fact it exists after HiMERU told him about it as seen by the fact that he's shocked by being prompted to prove he's over the age of 18 when looking it up for himself.

Afterwards, HiMERU does not seem to refer to what the PBB truly is despite seemingly knowing and continues to dance around this fact when Kohaku shows his confusion to the explanation HiMERU is reading off of the internet. This implies him trying to attempt to protect Kohaku from what he can in an attempt to be a more responsible adult for him.

We can see this in the few screenshots below.

*Sakuragawa is referring to Kohaku here, its a machine error

The story is not in favor of this existing, as RPF is a real thing that exists and while it is uncomfortable, especially in regards to the fact that this involves a coupling of an adult with a minor, I think it was the best play here. Kohaku and HiMERU have a very complicated relationship with one another although not a bad one. So fans seeing it, not knowing HiMERU's real age that we do as the reader, and everything else *would* realistically result in something like this.

Its something you should be uncomfortable with, and something that is good to be uncomfortable with. But despite this, we need to keep in mind that showing support for this thing is NOT what the goal is here.

From here, we can figure out that the popularity from the PBB has boosted the rest of the Bees' popularity, despite most of the work they're currently getting being related to HiMERU and Kohaku. Rinne only pushes the work the that the Bees get onto HiMERU and Kohaku, continuing to mess around with the other two's source of popularity (in this case, buying a Doujinshi to poke fun at them and also to learn exactly what the PBB is too due to having his socials frozen and being unable to see for himself). This results in the two taking a job where they work with a smaller company to create a show where the two live a simple and domestic life together to keep in line with why PBB is popular and continue to ride the monkey's paw of a trend.

HiMERU does note before production though, that Kohaku reminds him of Kaname. If you ask me, I think this is partially why HiMERU, the one that chose the job the two do, went with this. It doesn't seem very "HiMERU like" to do, but it could be how he himself feels not how the idol persona feels. We know how much HiMERU cares for Kaname, and how highly of a pedestal he places his little brother on so wanting something calm and to be able to properly care for his brother in the hospital doesn't seem like much of a surprise when you think about it and has the decision make sense.

This is only emphasized by his thought after about how he asks himself if this was what he wanted with Kaname, the ability to raise him better and be a better older brother after the Reimei incident during Obbligato.

After a while of the small show airing and gaining popularity, Kohaku doesn't understand the popularity still. Possibly even less due to how simple the show is when its something he simply doesn't like. On top of this fact, HiMERU has been acting slightly weird in Kohaku's eyes, possibly due to HiMERU's reasoning for doing the show. Niki does sympathize with Kohaku's criticisms with the show but despite this, he can't really find himself arguing with success.

Niki ends up criticizing things a bit more though despite this, making comparisons to what he knows better. He compares the show and fans to chefs and their customers, talking about how doing the same thing can be boring and stifling even if its what the people want. HiMERU seems to be ignoring this or not quite taking it to heart like he should. Possibly due to him not realizing he's projecting his own wants onto Kohaku? Though, that's just a guess and nothing else.

At the same time, Rinne turns out to have uploaded a video himself of his plans to sabotage the show that end up failing due to Rinne getting stuck in a box in a storage room under heavy furniture. The other three end up having to get him out of the box in the storage room after they find the video. However, I want to focus on Rinne's plans to sabotage the show.

Of course this could be chalked up the Rinne wanting to sabotage the popularity not focused on him, after all it's what he claims to be doing. Yet, I can't help but feel like his intentions are different. We know that Rinne cares a lot about the people in his life, even if he refuses to properly show it when not through his persona (though, this is an analysis for another day). Rinne bought the Doujinshi at the start of the story as a means to figure out what exactly the PBB was and why it was so popular. Combining the two facts, he was probably able to piece two and two together and want to sabotage what the PBB are doing and, in turn, their popularity. Likely for the safety of Kohaku much like HiMERU trying to shield him from what exactly PBB is. A lot of who Rinne is, is something you have to read between the lines for or else you also become someone fooled by Rinne's persona much like the other people of ES - however that isn't the focus right now.

After getting Rinne out of the box in storage, we timeskip a few weeks to one of Rinne's plans to sabotage the show. Its a roughly put together show created after annoying Ibara enough. The short of this being a search for something called the "Nagigon" which is a large creature of some sort that just so happens to be played by Nagisa himself.

It's important to note that Kohaku does have more fun with this compared to the more formal show he's working on with HiMERU. Filming for the show doesn't go very far however, due to the location of the shooting being leaked and getting swarmed with fans protesting that this place isn't safe for them to record at. This whole thing only manages to back up Rinne's worries for Kohaku and HiMERU, with them giving into the demands of the fans above everything else including their safety. This only backs up my thoughts on why Rinne is trying to sabotage the show, but I digress.

After this, HiMERU and Kohaku go back to filming the domestic show they were before. Kohaku's complaints only get worse from here, not only about the show's production but also being and idol as a whole. Despite this fact, HiMERU also does not like where the PBB has led them and the rest of Crazy:B telling Kohaku to accept it like he has.

Kohaku, once again, points out that this behavior is weird. HiMERU does try to listen to the fans more compared to the rest of the Bees, especially Rinne. Likely due to the fact that he doesn't 100% know what Kaname himself would do and also due to how HiMERU created the idol persona in the past. But at the same time, this is also likely due to nothing but popularity. HiMERU's goal as we know it is to keep the name "HiMERU" in the spotlight for when Kaname is healthy again and able to take the name back for himself. The sheer popularity that the PBB has is only helping his end goal, which is likely why HiMERU is acting weird. Normally, the popularity of himself follows the rest of Crazy:B but now its surged outside of the fact in a way he himself can control. It falls back on the concept of how this popularity is nothing but a monkey's paw. It's something neither of them truly like, more than likely due to the cause of it all on top of where it ended up getting them.

HiMERU is handling the pressure and stress of the popularity better than Kohaku though, as it ends up with him passing out and going to the hospital. Consequently the same one that Kaname is staying at.

At the hospital, Rinne and Niki end up staying with Kohaku as he wakes up while HiMERU is off with Kaname.

From this point on, things are going to get more wordy as the later half of the story contains more of what I want to talk about.

HiMERU notes that there's more merch around Kaname since the last time he was here, as well as the reveal that Kaname is more awake than before. He hasn't perfectly healed, and will likely be bedridden for a long time to come but he has been having a lot of improvement. The biggest of which being, that he is awake at times and seems to be requesting merch of his brother.

The full card cg shows pieces of merch in his room, the ones we can clearly make out being the Feature Scout 1 outfit poster, a poster of the Trip Album cover, and a plush of HiMERU in his Crazy:B uniform.

Kaname is far from healed, with this merch not of "HiMERU" but of his brother, being comfort for him and his bouts of incoherency. Kaname and HiMERU have both relied on each other in a way. Their relationship being nothing but complicated due to how they met, discovering each other's existence and everything that happened during the events of Obbligato.

Due to all of this, Kaname seemingly being fine with HiMERU doing what he's doing while also being unable to vocalize it properly due to his current state makes sense. We don't know the specifics of Kaname's condition, leaving us to unfortunately have to fill in the gaps so most of this is a mix between speculation and an understanding of both Tojou's character.

The name HiMERU was something that felt stifling to Kaname, it was a fact he mentioned to Tatsumi. This was something HiMERU didn't know himself until the events of ESY1. HiMERU was operating under the assumptions he himself had made and still cannot back down from. If anything, this fact proves that the brothers truly don't know each other that well. They never grew up together, for one reason or another (I'll get into that later), and as such have put each other up higher than they should be. They have never seen each other's faults properly.

This is being reflected in the merch that now surrounds Kaname. Despite the name never being his, and probably understanding that it will never be his. He's okay with this. A lot of people have been under the assumption that he wouldn't like what HiMERU is doing, but that's just wrong. If anything it could be freeing for Kaname, especially after the incident. We don't know much about him now after everything, because people can change and be affected by trauma like this in different ways. But it's probably safe to assume not much has changed by his actions.

He wants the comfort of his brother, and seeing him surrounded by not only HiMERU merchandise, but also PBB items likely brings him some of that comfort when he's awake and his brother isn't there.

And at the same time, when HiMERU is visiting Kaname, he seeks out the comfort of his younger brother. We truly see how conflicted he feels during this part, asking Kaname if this is what he truly would've wanted for the idol name he now has. He asks both Kaname, and mostly himself, if this is what Kaname wants and if he is truly crafting a place for him to be when he recovers. Only backing up the idea that the two don't truly know each other but only want the best for each other.

Although, this scene can't stay for too long. HiMERU unfortunately cannot entirely vanish to stay with Kaname as much as he'd like to do so. Rinne ends up catching him in the lounge leading the two to have an interesting talk. Rinne quizzes HiMERU on where he was and why his face looks sad, eventually revealing he knows about HiMERU's secret. It's something that could've been inferred from various other stories if you ask me, but seeing it properly spelt out is interesting. On top of this, Rinne also points out HiMERU is currently a year older than his persona, comparing his age to Niki which would currently make him 19. HiMERU doesn't shoot this down or acknowledge it being correct, giving nothing but a vague response about how faking your age by a year or so is more common than one would expect. While true - it is important to note that Rinne may be right due to HiMERU's avoidance of the topic.

*translation is a little broken - however it still shows Rinne saying "one year older" in reference to HiMERU

I'd argue this makes perfect sense. During the events of Obbligato, he would be about 17 or so, meaning he's still essentially a kid during this. In a way, it can make his actions make more sense when looking at it from this angle. However, I plan to dedicate an analysis to HiMERU's age sometime soon as I would like to talk about it separately and go more in depth about Obbligato and how this doesn't retcon what we know already but that isn't the focus currently.

Regardless, HiMERU ends up getting defensive and speaking in first person. Another something I deem important of note. After Rinne coming forward with the fact he knows his secret, even calling Kaname "Kannamecchi" as a nickname, HiMERU has nothing to hide. He speaks in third person to preserve his secret and be what HiMERU is supposed to be, not who HiMERU truly is. Without that secret, he's allowed to be himself. He's speaking for himself here, how he claims to not trust Rinne himself and threatens to harm him should he hurt Kaname or drag him into any sort of mess. Rinne however, takes this moment to try to drill into HiMERU that the PBB isn't good and how him being "HiMERU" isn't good either and making him act strange.

Another moment that shows how much Rinne cares so much about those around him despite his persona. Another thing I plan on talking about at some point.

HiMERU ends up calming down and asking about how Kohaku is doing, Rinne ends up turning this around on him and continues to push the idea that "HiMERU" is causing problems here and brings up how Kohaku was wrapped up in "HiMERU's" mess. This manages to be enough to get HiMERU to reflect a bit more, realizing that this all started from Kaname. The popularity was not only good for the idol name, but also seemed to be making Kaname happy with the growing merch in his hospital room. HiMERU was always skeptical about the trend, knowing about it in full and how odd it was in multiply ways. During this reflection, Kohaku walks up to the two of them. Both Kohaku and Niki were called to the lounge by Rinne, allowing them to hear at least part of the conversation the two were having including parts of HiMERU's self reflection and bits about Kaname.

This prompts the two of them to properly talk out everything going on. Neither of them are happy and only one was willing to admit it previously - HiMERU even taking a moment to remind himself and truly realize that Kohaku wasn't happy. Its a moment of selfishness we rarely see from HiMERU and one he doesn't seem to realize exists because he kept pushing the show "for the fans" when really he was also being a tad selfish with his own wants by imagining Kohaku as Kaname. Kohaku continues to talk about how he wants to show himself off more, be his own idol, instead of just listening to what the fans want like HiMERU seemingly wants to do. Niki only backs up Kohaku, expressing himself freely in the process to emphasize that people need to mix up what they're doing while also taking others into consideration. This also manages to click something in place for HiMERU, with him realizing that Kaname probably cared less about seeing the PBB and more about seeing his brother in any capacity.

This realization allows him to act more like himself again, or at least how people see him. Kohaku even feeling better after talking for a few. The two end up agreeing to put an end to the show going on and resume activity as Crazy:B as they always have, turning down Rinne's plans to go out with a bang as he normally would.

Despite this though, when Kohaku and HiMERU plan to do a live together at a festival and announce the end of doing things as a duo and go back to doing things with the rest of their unit, Rinne still manages to crash the party. Rinne, dragging Niki into his mess as usual, ends up turning it into a Crazy:B live since he didn't want just HiMERU and Kohaku enjoying the festival. Many fans end up speculating from this that Rinne forced Kohaku and HiMERU to halt PBB activity but they try to ignore that. Kohaku admits he enjoys Crazy:B for what it is, despite how hectic it can be with Rinne as a leader. HiMERU himself even recognizing that deep down this is what he was expecting, and in turn enjoying it.

After everything, Kohaku and HiMERU end up going back to finish shooting the little show with Nagisa and Rinne, enjoying that more than they did recording things as the PBB. Nagisa was even enjoying it himself. HiMERU truly came out from behind the persona he built up for Kaname more by the end of this story, as he continues to do so bit by bit with each story we see him in. The others even recognize this, Kohaku especially with calling out how HiMERU did see him as a little brother.

To summarize my thoughts and add a few notes that I couldn't add in elsewhere, I think the story is very good and a solid enough commentary on how popularity as an idol can come from varying places both good and bad (comparative to other ES stories at least) and how popularity itself is a powerful thing for better or for worse. Its not perfect by any means, much like any other Ensemble Stars story, but its a lot better than I think people give it credit for. We learnt more about HiMERU than we knew previously and a handful of assumptions I've seen some people have were confirmed - myself included. It's also interesting to see HiMERU be more selfish with his wants, even if he doesn't entirely realize it.

I hope we one day see HiMERU shine through more past his few moments of speaking in first person. I would like to see his real personality outshine the idol he portrays himself as. The bits we do see in the story feel powerful to me since his emotions get too strong in regards to Kaname that he lets his guard down, especially when people know his secret. Things likely won't be changing anytime soon, but improvement is still improvement and I want to see more of that.

Regardless, thank you for making to the end of this lengthy analysis. I hope you enjoyed reading it and I hope this story can now be understood better.

a/n

- I plan on making edits to this in the future when I have written the analysis on both HiMERU's age and how Rinne shows how much he cares about people, attaching the analysis to the points needed so people can further see me prove the points I would like to as the focus is on this story specifically and I would like some place separate to talk about these specific things rather than the story as a whole. - If anything needs clarification, I messed up information or you would like me to talk about something in more detail, do not hesitate to send an ask so I can talk about it or make fixes to the post as needed. I would like for this to be accurate as possible.

Edit Log

October 25th, 2024 - Edited a mistake where "Pastel Bee Brothers" was put as "Pastel Bee Boys"

[floatingcatacombs]

Anaheim Gals Being Anaheim Pals

12 Days of Aniblogging 2024, Day 2

Zeta Gundam has a real lurching, strange start by design. In the time between the One Year War and the Gryps Conflict, things have gone terribly! Not only did a good amount of Zeon’s forces escape to the asteroid belt and start rebuilding, the Earth Federation is getting taken over from within by the ruthless Titans. But wait, the Titans are still feddies at the end of the day, so why are they the ones piloting Hizacks and other Zeon-style designs at the start of the show?

The answer to this is brilliant and sadly relegated to a narrative footnote. You see, after the One Year War, Zeonic’s personnel and blueprints got absorbed into Gundam manufacturer Anaheim Electronics, as part of an Operation Paperclip-style deal. This leaves Anaheim's mobile suit aesthetics during the interwar period a total hodgepodge, iterating on both GM and Zaku style designs while also moving forward with plenty of secret prototype successors to the RX-78 Gundam. Maybe it’s just the OL in me, but this particular era and company really pique my interest! The culture shock and office politics that would follow from Anaheim folding in the engineers from the other side of the last war, the competition between rival design teams, the back-channel deals of an arms manufacturer now compelled to play both sides…

I’d been told that the Gundam OVA entitled Stardust Memory was vaguely about this, but I’d also been told that Stardust Memory was terrible and just plain not worth watching, so I steered away from it. Instead, my prayers were answered in the form of a lovely 2009 yuri doujin visual novel called Anaheim Girl’s Love Story.

I don't feel like cropping the screenshots, so peep my VM setup. it'll add to the vibe

First things first, I would like to simply acknowledge the joy of being alive, and alive at this exact moment in time. It is so wonderful that a group of dedicated fans made a complete visual novel starring lesbian office workers at the Mecha War Crime Engineering Company. And not only did they realize this dream in the first place, a separate group translated the script into English in 2013, and then another team reverse-engineered the game’s engine and released a patch in 2020 so that now the translation can be experienced in its original format. Each and every one of you is a true yuri warrior.

Anaheim Girl’s Love Story is a passion project through and through, extrapolating from all the bits and pieces of lore we get about Anaheim Electronics across various shows and crafting a believable setting, while still making it feel like a Gundam story on some level. It’s also fully voice acted? I don’t know what typical doujin VN production values were like in 2009, but still, color me impressed. We play as Rinne, a new recruit to Anaheim and a mecha otaku through and through. She loves these mobile suits, just like you and me! And she wants nothing more than to work for the company who invented the Gundam. Anaheim is a tech company through and through – most of the workers on the ground really believe in what they’re doing and put their whole heart into it, even as their leadership takes on increasingly shady and secretive contracts. But it’s also implied, in the VN and in the Gundam shows, that the company is staffed by mostly women. Great! I really do like when a setting asserts that being invested in mecha is primarily something that women do. After all, girls were the ones that kept 0079 popular in the first place according to Tomino.

All of the Anaheim girls have pale blue double-breasted suit jackets and long pencil skirts, culminating in an extremely 80’s look. AGLS also covers its blurry background photos with a dark blue filter, resulting in a fairly monochrome game where the character expressions really pop out from everything else. The mecha CGs are surprisingly well done, even if they suffer a bit from 2000’s shading syndrome, when everyone went a little too hard on the airbrush. The character portraits holds up a lot better in comparison. All of this to say that the presentation is fairly minimal, as they were clearly working with limited resources, but it gets the job done.

Rinne likes milk tea and is equal amounts excited and anxious about her job. This is the sort of milquetoast relatable protagonist traits you’d find in any dating sim, so the fun twist here is that when she’s feeling down about her work, she’ll go to the hanger where an RX-78 (the RX-78? It’s left unclear) is being stored and start talking to it. Rubber-ducking your mobile suit designs with an actual mobile suit is cute!! Things unfold as you’d expect, with Rinne befriending her hacker kouhai, starting a rivalry with the office villainess, and getting intimidated by her boss Sophie. It’s nothing revolutionary, but that’s fine, because the setting alone does a ton of the lifting. While no named characters from any official Gundam series appear, they’re namedropped ever so occasionally, and there’s plenty of cameos and lore sprinkled about for a Universal Centuryhead to lap up.

Of course, Rinne invites her boss over for dinner a bunch and discovers her soft and vulnerable side, and the two of them engage in a slowburn office situationship while trying to also trying to win the Gundam Development Project, an internal competition to develop next-generation experimental mobile suits. And wouldn’t you know it, office politics are afoot. She’s been keeping it from Rinne, but Sophie was originally an engineer from Zeonic. Trust issues ensue, as do complicated feelings about being in love with someone who designed the weapons that nearly killed you. The leadership of Anaheim has a clear bias towards Federation-style suits, and still views the Zeonic hires with scorn and suspicion, even if they bring useful perspectives in design philosophy. Sophie wants to design every part with cost and performance in mind! That’s what enabled the Zakus, after all. But if we skip ahead and look at the results, the end goal of this intra-office competition seems to have been extravagance bordering on wastefulness. Rinne and Sophie’s team produce a fairly standard but combat-versatile Gundam, while the other teams contributed a hyper-flexible Gundam, a hilariously overinflated mobile armor that you can stick a Gundam into, and a Gundam with a fucking nuke attached to it.

Most romance VNs and stories in general have some sort of last-act plot development that threatens to end things so the couple can bounce back and have a narrative climax. Sickness, family, trauma, a breakup feint, really anything is fair game. Anaheim Girl’s Love Story pulls out the most brutal one yet – “Stardust Memory happened”. It turns out that Anaheim has been playing both sides of the emerging Delaz conflict, and was planning on giving your team’s ship to a particularly unhinged Zeon commander as a gift of goodwill and temporary alliance. In doing so, they dismantle the iconic Gundam armor from the mobile suit frame, replacing it with a new and undeniably Zeonic red outer shell. It’s a genuinely fucked-up moment! To see your child ripped away from you and corrupted into being the other kind of war crimes monster, and your boss/girlfriend knew this was going to happen and was too ashamed to tell you. Rinne runs out of oxygen while trying to stop the Gebera Tetra from deploying, and falls into a coma afterwards. By the time she wakes up, the events of Stardust Memory have all played out, and things are in the process of returning to normal. Our protagonist ends up on a research vessel to Jupiter to test cutting-edge mobile suits, but promises to meet up with Sophie again when she returns. One wonders if she got recruited into joining Paptimus’ crew while on Jupiter, and was subsequently killed by Kamille. The timelines just barely overlap to make it possible!

Anyways, that’s Anaheim Girl’s Love Story. I’m not sure how fleshed out the hacker girl’s route is, or if there are different endings I could have gotten on mine. Maybe I’ll give it another shot next year. This game is by no means amazing. It is on some level just a softcore lesbian eroge with a Gundam coat of paint. But the delicacy with which it fits itself into the UC chronology without messing things up or being a fully irrelevant plot, the care put into having these ladies fall in love and do the usual OL yuri rituals, the honesty with which it carries itself… I’m so charmed by it all. I don’t know if I’d recommend it outright (you’d want to already be very invested in this slice of Gundam, and you need a VM with an older version of Windows to play it, and I think the website linking to the patch went down earlier this year), but I’m so happy that this exists in the first place and that I got to play it.

What I am less happy about is that this visual novel made me trick myself into watching Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. This is entirely on me, mind. Most lesbians are fooled into watching Stardust Memory because they saw images of Cima Garahau online, but I was ready for that trick. No, I genuinely wanted to fill in the finer plot details of the 6.5/10 visual novel I just played. Oopsies.

[mamadarama]

https:// [remove this part] x.com/gitsunegal/status/1848914772965925362/photo/1

formatted weirdly bc only way to send links anonymously haha! anyway someone made a rinne relationship chart with all the es characters (most of them do not like him)

(screenshot)

oh huh! thats pretty good. yuta, hinata, and himerus placements are a little odd to me though.

yuta doesnt hate rinne, he just finds him to be unpleasant and stressful to be around . he does trust him to an extent and (begrudgingly) follows his advice, but the way rinne presents criticism is way too harsh for yuta . so id say he dislikes rinne as a person, but respects him as a senior.

rinne is a kind of mentor for hinata, for better or for worse. hinata likes and respects him but just like with yuta, rinne doesnt beat around any bushes so his criticism comes off a bit too strongly.

himeru started off as conflicted about rinne, but as of now hes accepted that rinne is one of, if not his closest friends. however that doesnt change that himeru isnt very good at expressing emotions especially not affection, and on top of that rinne is a lot to put up with which can get exhausting . so himeru does like rinne but finds him draining to be around. thats sort of a theme with rinne ive noticed... a lot of characters know hes not as bad as he seems, but hes still just so insufferable to be around most of the time :/

also idk about the stories but i think ive seen rinne and tori being friendly in the 4koma so they might be on good terms?

[infernaltenor]

one more niki analysis.

for now.

ok this one technically i've had in mind for MONTHS but couldn't figure out how to word it until just now because i a) read hot limit about three months ago and it hasn't left my head since b) the idol exploration event.

anyway. the actual crux of this is: niki's character is specifically written to be content, not happy. these often get confused imo. the second part of this is his contentedness isn't natural, it's forced. the third part of this is no one fucking notices, except for one rinne amagi, because of course he does. by no one, i'm talking specifically character-wise here; niki in game tends to get written off as childish or otherwise doing well, and that comes directly from his other unit members.

side note: i'm fairly confident in my own reading of "niki will pretend to not be bothered by anything, ever" and this is bolstered by a few different things; a) the honeycomb summer lyrics in my last post where there's a part of the intro, "hidden the true feelings out of habit / and now you're regretting it" (rinne amagi you slick bastard) b) hot limit. like the entire story. mostly because he was being troubled by multiple different things throughout it (work, idol activities, and his family last name/father's scandal) and the only person who noticed was rinne, and that's probably because he knew the damn guy for five years c) also in hot limit, the exploration into niki seeing himself as a burden because of his illness. why did they add this into his character and then not elaborate further? i don't know. if it never gets elaboration, i'll implode. anyway, it's a part of his character that he usually doesn't show, but he references it as "not wanting to inconvenience the people around him" REGARDLESS of if the people in question don't mind him inconveniencing them (rinne). in general, the only thing he makes a fuss about is food, likely because of his metabolism and the fact that he does become more of a danger to people when extremely hungry (he has bitten hiiro before.); i.e. the inconvenience for everyone else is a 19-20yro trying to bite them, not complaining that he's hungry.

i digress.

niki has referenced himself as being content with certain things before. for instance, in hot limit, it's phrased distinctly as "just getting to eat every day is a bliss to me - i need to be satisfied with that", which comes up again in his letter from the idol exploration:

"it feels like happiness is there to fill my stomach, too!" oh, is it? is it niki? is it now?

basically, what i'm getting at is niki's expectations for life are so incredibly low, so he's satisfied with getting to eat every day. that's it. just satisfied. side note: this is why i went insane when survival was added to his profile; the way he lives/talks about living, he's been surviving more than living. this is also why i think rinne and niki work so well as a pair, rinne's into living and niki's busy surviving. though, to be fair, rinne and niki's relationship is built on this crux anyway. rinne intends (hopes, maybe? his goal?) is to help niki with what he has identified as a problem. thank you rinne amagi.

(for the record, right after i read this, my live reaction was "WHAT IF I KILLED MYSELF". that's quite dramatic, and i won't, but i figured someone might get a laugh out of that.)

this isn't the first time that rinne has referred to niki (well, more so implied) as "not happy", as it happens in hot limit, too.

"that's why i'll grant his wish and make him happy" oh ok i see.

anyway. niki's fascinating, because this forced contentedness vs happiness is so interesting to me, because beyond rinne's own read of niki, it's easily bought by everyone else he knows. most notably, kohaku and himeru, as their impressions come off of reading niki quite differently to rinne's:

(i grabbed these screenshots after i finished the event for the time being. rinne's i grabbed before LMAO)

both of them appreciate and even look up to niki in certain ways, and they both like his focus on food. but what's interesting is how both of them see him vastly different from rinne; where rinne focuses on his low self impression, himeru thinks niki's perspective of the world is interesting, as well as i think he gives credence to niki being selfless, which kohaku sees him as both childish and reckless. i'm pretty sure both himeru and kohaku see him as more naive than themselves, which is a fair read. this also does line up with what happens in hot limit; while rinne is aware of the troubles niki's going through, himeru and kohaku are both surprised at the end.

niki's own effort, i think, to convince himself of being satisfied and content pays off, because the only person who notices otherwise is rinne. which, imo, is a whole other source of depth to their relationship; rinne probably saw niki working that out. he was 14 when they met, and likely the shiina parents leaving was recent (side note: i'm a certified niki's parents hater. i know we don't have much info on them, but i don't trust them after that burden thing), which is something i've mostly extrapolated by the contact he seems to have at 14 vs at 19, where they're pretty much never mentioned. yes, i know, niki chose to stay in japan. i just don't think you get through your parents leaving you in your native country at 14 while they gallivant around the globe and your communication with them steadily dwindles results in anything good.

ok. i'm sorry for the parent hating.

but unless proven otherwise i'm expecting them to be the source of these problems.

[rinneroraito]

I drew a fake screenshot of L and Rinne meeting each other again.

(I used my bf's hands as references for L's hands)

This is a little funny in my head because L's wardrobe never changed so the moment he introduces himself to the Task Force, Rinne immediately recognizes him but keeps it in.

L was surprised to see her but didn't really bring it up until they had the one-on-one interview as he wanted to make sure that she really was the lady he met a few years ago. Her becoming a Police Investigator was something he didn't predict.

"But then again our interaction had been brief, I hadn't gathered enough information about you to deduce what you'd be doing for a career."

"Isn't it a pleasant surprise? I know I am pleasantly surprised, for all I knew you were just a weird guy who had been nice to me then, not 'The World's Greatest Detective'..."

[distortedmoondisc]

(Reposting a small informal essay I wrote about this specific line of Vermilion back in july that got lost in my blog. Adding screenshots of my reblogs, which prompted me to write all of this, for context).

Hiiro, who was raised to devote his whole existence to one person and that all his value as an individual is tied to the successful filling of that role. And then someone, the voice of the song—probably Hiiro himself, since he's the one singing this specific line—telling him that "there's meaning you'll never grasp" living as his own, independent person....

And that's just.... I don't know. It feels just so melancholic, for some reason. A sort of existential melancholy. It's reminiscent as to when we're told that we'll probably never discover all the secrets of the ocean or all the secrets about outer space, that we'll never understand 100% a specific topic or matter of study because there's so much information about it, it isn't humanly possible to process it all in a single lifetime. "There is meaning you'll never be able to grasp, there are things you'll never be able to learn or to understand." And that just feels so unfair and distressing, for some reason.

So that makes me think about how the lyrics are implying that Hiiro—despite enjoying his new-found freedom of being Hiiro Amagi, the Leader of Alkaloid, and not Hiiro Amagi, servant of the monarch—he might never be able to fully understand or to enjoy the meaning of his new existence ("there's meaning you'll never be able to grasp"). Hiiro grew up thinking that the rules of his hometown are universal truths and that he must uphold them above everything else—so if the rules tell him that he must dedicate his whole life to serve his brother and that he doesn't have any value outside of that, who is he to deny it? Who is he to fight it? Who is he to interrupt the social norm and the peace of his society? He says it himself in the main story: rules are meant to keep the peace of the community, and peace can only be achieved if everyone does their part without complaining.

So Hiiro already had the meaning of his existence, up to that point, and he didn't need anything else. He was Rinne's servant, he was a member of his hometown, and he was given a mission: to bring his brother, the Monarch, back home to take the throne. It was very clear and simple — but then he met Alkaloid, and all of the idols of ES. He was exposed to the city, to the outside world, to countless different ways of thinking and ways of life. The MDM happened (including Rinne disowning him), and the meaning of his existence was broken. Hiiro is now free, but he's left without any guidance or absolute truths he can rely on a world so grand and contradicting that he can't even comprehend it, and that realistically, he never will.

So what can he do, with a problem of this scope?

What do you do, when all you thought was an absolute truth, actually is not? (and that in fact, absolute truths might not even exist to begin with?) When all the things you learned, the rights and the wrongs, differ from place to place, and from person to person? When you have been left to your own devices to figure out this new world you've been thrown into, that is so contradicting and confusing, all by yourself?

Is this the burden you have to carry, the price you have to pay, to be an independent, autonomous person? (Is this a process Rinne, his brother, also had to go through?)

But then, Mayoi's lyrics in come up, "With the suit of your soul—" and then the rest of Alkaloid sing together—"Persist in your belief."

And this is the part of the song where the existential melancholy gets turned upside down. Yes, Hiiro might never be able to fully grasp the meaning of this new life. Yes, he might never be able to fully understand the new world he's been thrown into, and he will have to struggle trying to navigate it on his own—but the lyrics are pushing him to keep moving forward despite of that. "With the new life you have been given, persist in your beliefs" it's an encouragement, a comforting line. It's Alkaloid (Tatsumi, Mayoi, and Aira) telling him that despite the world being confusing and contradicting and so so vast with multiple wrong and right answers—the best thing Hiiro can do is to be true to himself; to keep tackling adversity and life head on, to try to learn and to understand it as best as he can, and draw his own logical conclusions about it—not conclusions and answers given to him arbitrarily by someone else. And most importantly: that he isn't alone, that he has a group of people that will accompany him along the way, with varying degrees of knowledge about the world, that will complement and support him on his own journey.

And only then, Hiiro will live an autonomous life—and there will be meaning he will never be able to grasp, but that's okay. He isn't meant to, and that's fine.

[satoshi-mochida]

Anime-inspired arcade space combat game Rogue Flight announced for PS5, Xbox Series, Switch, and PC - Gematsu

Publisher Perp Games and developer Truant Pixel have announced Rogue Flight, an arcade space combat game inspired by 80s and 90s anime. It will launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch, and PC via Steam in late 2024.

Here is an overview of the game, via Perp Games:

About

Rogue Flight is a breathtaking arcade space combat game inspired by the landmark style of 80s and 90s prestige anime. Traverse the Sol system and join a flight force voiced by a veteran cast, featuring Japanese talent from Sailor Moon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gundam, Naruto, and One Piece, and English voice talent featured in Overwatch, Fallout 76, League of Legends, and Marvel’s Avengers. Jump into true stylish arcade action with a huge host of spacecraft upgrades, game modes, and multiple narrative paths.

Story

It’s been three years since the world burned. It was ARGUS; the interstellar watchman system given control of the Solar Defense Force. In a secret facility deep beneath the surface of the Earth, the last vestiges of humanity prepare to launch a daring counterattack. Take control of an advanced light space fighter and face hordes of enemies in a last-ditch effort to destroy ARGUS and restore peace to the Sol system.

Key Features

Featuring a retro 80s to 90s analogue video art style inspired by the golden age of prestige anime.

Stylish high-speed arcade action set across nine unique stages spanning the Sol system.

Utilize incredible aerial acrobatic maneuvers coupled with a dizzying array of weapon types.

Experience a branching narrative path with multiple endings.

Choose from standard arcade and unlockable roguelite game modes which offer greater risks and even greater rewards.

Personalize your aircraft from over 100 unlockable liveries, as well as 24 badges with multiple color and style combinations.

Customize your loadout from over 40 unlockable aero designs and 40 unlockable weapons from multiple classes with upgradable attributes.

Featuring an original soundtrack featuring renowned video game sound design duo Fat Bard, additional music by Rinn, and an original opening theme with stunning vocals by J-Pop artist Itoki Hana.

Fully voiced in English and Japanese by veteran casts, including English talent from Fallout 76, Overwatch, League of Legends, and Marvel’s Avengers, and Japanese talent from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gundam, Sailor Moon, Naruto, and One Piece.

Unlockable extras, accolades and more.

Multiple difficulty levels for every player skill.

Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.

Announce Trailer

[jonas-ct]

Finally making a summary of my naruto AU (mostly repeating what I said to a friend when it was still just barely a concept lol)

(please don't mind any mistype, i barely reread myself)

So, just a little backstory on the why: I was playing a naruto game (naruto x boruto ninja voltage, rip, it was a peak game, no joke, all the anime games I play end up terminating the next year, I might be cursed)

And in it you can have teams of 4 ninjas and my main team (really just the team with my best ninjas) was composed of:

(old screenshot)

And i thought it was hilarious (my first thought was smt like "lol Boruto is having the weirdest day of his life")

Now, I had started by designing Rin, and i hadn't even decided when in time they would all get sent to, so I told myself that they would probably need to be undercover, and to avoid any suspicion because of her face marks i decided that she would wear a kakashi-style mask and that she would pose as a guy (and Boruto would pose as a girl, i should have realised I'd end up making the kids trans, but i am an idiot so i didn't)

Now, for the name changes (that they use to be undercover, except Rin who uses it as his new name as a boy): they came after i decided for them to get transported to a time barely before Rin's canon death

Rinne: mainly for rebirth, reincarnation, I thought it was a very dramatic name for a trans person and was very close to "Rin" in pronounciation, then i realised it was already used in canon for the rinnegan and said fuck it i'm keeping it anyway

Boruto: no name change, that's mainly because I didn't feel the need to give her a new name, but also because I believe that even after transitioning she would like to have an attachment to the life she lost when time traveling and decided to make her keep her birth name, I'm also a sucker for trans characters who keep their birth name.

Tobi: I had no inspiration ngl, he already has a perfect alias like i like them to be, close to his old name without being too on the nose

Mada: I messed up and made it too on the nose, but i had to somehow change his name because no matter the time period, being called Madara Uchiha will make heads turn, (exact words i said to my friend: "because of the fact that Madara is kind of the ultimate villain name to give your kid in the narutoverse post his first death")

Rough explanation of the horribly thought timeline now (please keep in mind the designs i gave them are supposed to be from a few months after the time displacement):

I haven't thought of a reason why they got time displaced, because I am extremely lazy

Tobi and Mada were displaced a bit before the kids, being both aware of Zetsu's plan Tobi didn't too much of a hard time to force Mada to fix the stuff he messed up in preparation for his eye moon plan, they decide that they'll start by not letting Rin die and killing the Madara and Zetsu of that timeline

They split up: Tobi is in charge of killing the supervillains, Mada is in charge of making sure Kakashi doesn't kill Rin and that Obito isn't conscious in case he fails

So he puts young Obito under a genjutsu, kill the white zetsu around him, carry him on his back and continue in team minato's direction, but when Rin's death is very close to happening, he feel Isobu's chakra at another place, so he hesitates and Kakashi successfully (if we want to call that a success) kills Rin, Mada opts to kill their enemy nins so that at least Kakashi is vaguely safe and then turns around to go tame the tame beast (I decided that if one eye of a pair awakens mangekyou then both eyes do cuz it's easier that way for me idc)

When he arrives he does not see Isobu but Rin (Rinne) in a full on rampage, with a panicked blonde kid (Boruto) running away from her, he chooses to force the beast into submission thanks to his super awesome sharingans and bring the three kids with him to the cave where Tobi destroyed Madara and Zetsu, well he brings Obito and Rinne but Boruto tags along because she's really confused as to where she is

In the cave, Tobi fixes up the seal on Rinne as well as he can(bro saw a lot of seals when he was actively killing jinchurikis, so he's on temporary seal fixing duty)

Tobi, Mada, Rinne and Boruto manage to figure out they're all time-displaced (or more like dimension-displaced but whatever), thanks to Tobi intelligently asking Boruto if she's a fucked up Naruto and her telling him that no, her dad is fucked up Naruto

When young Obito wakes up, Tobi and Mada decide to just make things up so that they have a cover story that young Obito, the yapper that he is, will spread for them:

-Tobi and Mada are traveling nin, they are cousins who didn't grow up in Konoha because they were born from the encounters between beautiful civilian women and handsome Uchihas on a mission far from home

-Boruto is Tobi's student, she doesn't have her family anymore

-They were on their way to Konoha to ask for a place in the village when they saw Kakashi stab Rin with his chidori, recognising the Konoha symbol on their forehead protectors they and decided to help them

-Kakashi passed out, they killed the enemy nins, healed Rin like they could (Kakashi's chidori "barely missed her heart") and tried to fix her seal

-Sensing more shinobis arriving they decided to leave with Rin because "they panicked"

-They found Obito passed out on their way to a cave to be safe for the night and took him too

-Obito woke up once already and shared Madara's mad plan with them all but he doesn't remember and they're not surprised because "he looked out of it and if they hadn't fought Madara and Zetsu when arriving at the cave then they would have thought he was making things up"

-Tobi and Mada then decided to fix what Madara did already and that they would come back to Konoha once they had done all they needed

Coming back to the truth, Tobi decides that it should be better for Obito to have someone help him get used to his alien-hashirama-plant limbs, and tracks down Tsunade and manages to get her to help Obito with the promise of no blood even being seen

My exact words: "Then they went to fix Madara's problems and came back later with Rinne and Boruto having started their transitions", I can't be bothered to think about how they fixed stuff up so yeah lol, timeskip on my side, now they look like the designs i shared

(to note: Rinne loses in chakra control because of the added tailed beast chakra, he kind of loses his mind because he can't be a great healer like he dreamed of and Mada ends up kinda feeling bad since it's technically his fault and teaches up insane taijutsu

Young Obito becomes the healer of team minato because Tsunade was going insane at his lack of medical knowlegde)

They get Tsunade to agree to come back to Konoha, for Obito, and also so that they go from "potential threat" to "people who helped save a young konoha shinobi who was thought dead", when Rinne gets recognised as Rin from team minato, they get bumped up to "people who helped save two young konoha shinobis who were thought dead"

Because I'm a sucker for "nothing ever goes wrong and everybody is happy" stories, they all (not Mada, because he doesn't want to) get integrated into the Konoha ranks, first as chunin because i play favourites, and Tobi takes the jonin test very quickly and takes over as team minato's new replacement leader (because Minato is very busy being hokage now and having a pregnant Kushina at home)

Boruto becomes somewhat friends with Kushina, helping her with her pregnancy, because she remembers some tricks from when she was young and her mother was expecting her sister

Mada ends up taking Rinne and Kakashi under his wing and, my exact words:

"he did such a better job at being a parental figure to Kakashi than he did to Tobi that Tobi makes him regret it by constantly being an ass"

"I loved the idea of young Kakashi seeing a man with tied down grey hair and mistaking him for his dead dad and apologising very badly and Mada just turning towards Tobi and being like 'Im gonna adopt this kid' and Tobi having flashbacks from when he was the same age and he had to live in a cave with Madara, and he was litteraly the worst parental figure on earth so he goes 'No you won't' and Mada still does cuz nobody can stop mada"

I haven't added anything to the main story of this au, I still have some silly little scenes I want to badly draw so I didn't include them here, but they don't add anything very interesting they're mainly just passing thoughts

Anyway, here's two drawings that aren't part of my au's story but that are set in similar universe, if that makes sense? (i don't think ive posted them already)

( the second one happened when i got bored and wanted to try to draw in a shojo style)

[anotherfandom]

I finished Rin-ne. Or Rinne. All 40 volumes of it. One of the few Rumiko Takahashi manga that wasn't a huge megahit, but I loved it. I heard some negative things regarding it from Inuyasha fans but it felt in line with the comedy of Ranma 1/2. Especially later Ranma 1/2 when the format settled. It tackles a lot of similar stuff as Urusei Yatsura (which had a fair few ghost stories) but isn't as wacky or high energy. In fact, one thing that I really enjoy is how Sakura Mamiya is basically unfazed by anything. It isn't "subtle" comedy by any means, but it was fun.

The main male protagonist (who forms a Rumic couple in a very very low key way) is the eternally poor Rinne Rokudo who frequently cries tears of blood for having to part with things that cost about like, ten dollars. The logistics of him always being poor don't quite make sense if you think about it. But they get a lot of mileage out of this, so much like Ataru's perviness or Ranma's competitiveness, you just roll with it for the jokes.

Anyway, I have a lot of screenshots and the recurring cast is big and I'll go through them all and make coherent thoughts at some point but I just wanted to get my overall out there. It is very episodic, plots will most often resolve themselves in one chapter. Which means a lot of variety in ghosts, but it does make for formula. Which is fine for me, but I can understand it doesn't have that same universal appeal as Inuyasha's ongoing saga. Overall, I liked it and I do recommend checking it out if you like Urusei Yatsura or Ranma 1/2 for the comedy.

[mihai-florescu]

Actually kohaku calls rinne a gigolo too. He was fujoshing out this story

YEA i was debating posting this one too. The screenshot here might be my own actually, i found it in my old hot limit liveblog and i cant believe i forgot about this until earlier now...

[enstarsfunniest]

i know the shinsekai in retaliation context: valk are trapped in virtual reality and they need to complete quests to win. Shu gives mika money to buy a weapon (mika choose the chainsaw, shu hates it) to complete challenges. Well as they're about to leave npc pushes shu into a fountain to do a woodcutter's axe bit (Aesop fable's honest woodcutter) with mika. "is this the shu you lost? or is it this shu?" One shu acts like rinne and the other shu acts like eichi. He refuses to call either of them Shu even tho the npc tells him he just has to choose one of them to leave the game. The eichi-shu makes mika so furious that he murders them both with his chainsaw instead of completing the quest. And then he gets sick because he was in vr too long to kill people <3

!!! you can also find some screenshots of the livetweet translation here, and the story should be coming to engstars in the following months too, so look forward to it!

[perceremade]

Apparently there is some sort of discourse over this tweet right now or was earlier... Rinne is a good character imo, and cares deeply for those he is close to despite mooching off of them sometimes. but also this person using completely unrelated scs and using a screenshot of CHARACTER AI 😭 ? THE BOT WEBSITE? as proof for it? Like are we going to start using the ais as proof for canonicity in enstars because honey in that case we are all doomed. And don't get me started on the implication that if you abuse a substance or are an addict you are immediately a bad person? My mom was an addict, and she was not good, but I still don't equate drug use and alcoholism to... fundamentally being incapable of being sweet? Their ass is getting beaten in the qrts, justifiably, can he not be sweet (sometimes) if he indulges in a little drinking and pachinko fun despite not necessarily being an alcoholic and pushing that too hard is a little weird in his case regardless of intentions...? Could've discussed the racism surrounding the way people treat the Amagi brothers or shown like actual proof of his kindness and not said that dumbass shit in the caption and it would've been a # hit tweet considering the genuine misinterpretation/mischaracterization, sometimes willing, of Rinne even though he sucks like part of him is that he sucks. Like he sucks sometimes. I like to make fun of him so much for justified reasons because he is an asshole sometimes it's just important to remember characters aren't one dimensional unless they are like made that way on purpose because of truly truly bad writing 😭enstars isn't the king of good writing but the characters have depth and enstars fans don't even try but anyways Why character.ai the bus driver all of a sudden

[starswallowingsea]

tell me about ummm. uhh. ibara

okay

mr sneaky snake himself coming to my grandma's house asking where i am /j

the first thing i think of when i think about ibara is how he seems to be a planner but has like. no plans for when they go awry which seems to be happening a lot especially in !! era (i have not read a lot of stories with him in ! era so i will not comment on that here). like rinne doing his whole thing in the main story with drawing all the ire towards himself and trying to let the rest of crazy:b go on their own, himeru rejecting the song in ariadne despite being offered it and a way to perform it without suspicion, nagisa's whole thing in the !! era (bogie time, conquest, and secret service all involve nagisa taking his own action away from ibara and thus throwing his plans off every single time). i think ibara should also take some improv acting classes so that he can get a little more comfortable with spontaneity because up til this point he's like. he's had this regimented life with the military school and then with regular idol boy school and keeping order and schedules. he makes a very good vice president because he can (generally) see through others' plans and plan around them but he's not very good at thinking on the spot.

i have almost no screenshots of ibara but its okay i'm insane enough about this game to just remember these things you can trust me /half joking. anyway the fact that frontline watchdogs exists and he just. cannot handle taking care of bloody mary or even call her by her name at the start of it. my man needs a fucking break and fr needs to embrace the spontaneity that eve does. there is a time and place for order but he just needs to learn to let go sometimes and i do think he is working on that and being able to stay calm when plans go awry and think on the spot will only help him develop. but it is funnier when he's forced to do some variety show because nagisa wanted to. shout out to bogie time my friend bogie time. bogie time really was good for him in being able to let loose in a safe environment and get more comfortable with thinking in the moment rather than pre-planning everything. a little change can be good ibanyan.

i do also think its very funny and cute that he kept the nicknames from bogie time for hajime and himself. the way he just told gatekeeper to stay away from jimenyan in the satellite prologue and hajime hadn't even used his nickname. its a nice touch that he still holds onto something silly like that. even ibara who has constructed a very careful image of himself has this one single silly habit of calling his (unexpected!!) friend a cat nickname from one show they did together.