#yes the one with hiyori and the one with souma are part of the same convo

[ryusei-green111]

[windypuddle]

Ensemble Stars!! > Bungou Stray Dogs, Part 2

Friends and foes:

The Port Mafia.

(A continuation of my Enstars as BSD AU, see other parts below)

[Part 1] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

This one is a bit of a doozy lore-wise.

I already talked about Rinne in the Agency post, but here goes. The Amagis were victims of the Great War like everyone else, hence the usual oh here’s some orphans that have been abandoned by society. well! guess they have no choice but to join the mafia! oops! and that’s pretty much what happened. except Rinne is a smart guy and good at scheming and planning and Ibara was like oh shit this guy is useful (+ no longer human). so he ended up becoming an executive.

Hiiro just kind of was a package deal with Rinne, but he’s not as good at planning and all that, so they snapped up this kid with an ability (Rashomon) and taught him how to fight, except no one really needed to teach him. since Rinne’s ability is noncombative Hiiro believed it was his duty to protect his older brother and you probably know from bsd how survival behaviors can get unhealthy in the mafia

after Rinne leaves Hiiro is devastated and starts his journey to try to bring him back. once Tsukasa leaves too he kind of gets worse about it. he meets Aira during the Guild conflict and Aira is like. maybe not a good influence all the time but definitely a Normal Influence.

Tsukasa’s family is like. Not exactly in the mafia but they run one of the front corporations for the mafia. Tsukasa is having a rebellious phase/formative experience when he joins the actual mafia. this complicates internal politics, but not nearly as much as it does when he leaves. (his ability is Demon Snow; most of the abilities are pretty much the same unless otherwise noted.)

Jin was one of the underground doctors and then ditched to go to Real Medical School after leaking information to the government and getting a pardon.

ok deserters category (+ Hiiro) aside lets get into the real mafia

Nagisa is the boss because he inherited it from his adoptive father. Ibara is the one who knows practically every detail about how the mafia works and basically runs it. He does carry out Nagisa’s orders when Nagisa feels like making any.

i do what i want with my aus and that includes ELIMINATING ALL THE WEIRD STUFF. i hope youre happy readers. yes Hiyori is Elise in that he’s the manifestation of Nagisa’s ability. hes also a wholeass adult that grew up alongside Nagisa and they are best friends and also in love. Hiyori has agency in this weird ability-typical roundabout where Nagisa wanted him to be his own separate person So He Is. but also he’s badass and occasionally superhuman

Jun is just here. idk. if Karma had more of a backstory i might be able to elaborate more. he works mostly closely with Ibara but also acts as a bodyguard for Hiyori and Nagisa.

listen. i know akatsuki mafia is an interesting choice. but listen. Keito is opportunistic and willing to set aside his morals for greater ends and would fit in well. anyway he’s cool his ability is golden demon but possibly with occasional design choices that reference Vampire Shogun.

Kuro.  yeah.. Kuro. he’s got for the tainted sorrow but without the human experimentation part. (can you tell i havent read stormbringer part 1) his sister has no clue he’s in the mafia and no one in the mafia knows he has a sister. Keito’s right-hand man.

Souma is so loyal to Keito for saving him from the Shinkai cult after the war and there is nothing questionable here at all! the mafia totally isn’t exploiting his intense devotion i don’t know what you’re talking about ^-^

(they definitely are. someone take this boy to therapy)

ryuseitai in the mafia is another interesting choice, I know. i think of them in this au kind of like the Sheep. yes Kanata is technically ex-mafia but it’s okay that was just his emo phase

Chiaki. oh, Chiaki, you poor, sweet, misguided boy with nowhere else to go, so you cling to the only place that gives you a sense of belonging. you had such ideals. (his ability is basically comet punch. idk what to tell you. he punches and its like a comet.) disregard any canon information about verlaine (can you tell i havent read stormbringer part 2)

Midori just wants to sleep but he’s got one of the more powerful abilities in the mafia (falling camellias) and his coworkers are stupid

Tetora doesn’t have an ability but he makes up for it with brute strength and various weaponry. everyone is terrified of him. Kaoru swears he saw Tetora in a dress once and mistook him for a girl and no one will believe him. (this would be easily solved because if anyone would bother to ask Tetora, he’d confirm the rumor and come out as genderfluid in the process, but everyone’s too intimidated to ask Tetora.)

Kaoru is just some guy (this is totally a front, just like being heterosexual is a front. more on that in part 5)

Shinobu has exploding ninja weapons. idk what else to tell you. they’ve got exploding ninja weapons, man.

Tori is cute (it’s a trap) (come on. who else would be Q)

HiMERU was not directly involved in the mafia, but while he was away on a “business trip”, Kaname got mixed up in some shit and ended up in the mafia (briefly) and died (for profit). If you look very, very deep in the records, well... you actually won’t find anything. But if you asked Rinne, he might remember a self-proclaimed “revolutionary” with a righteous complex that tried to single-handedly destroy the Mafia...

{Rinne was friends [as much as one can be friends in the mafia] with Jun (and Shinobu, callback to asobi club) and was kind of friends by proxy with Kaname for the short time that he was there. The seemingly meaningless death and sacrifice caused Rinne to leave the Mafia. And oh, was it interesting to show up at the Agency later on and see a vaguely familiar face...}

[astro-break]

Did I spend 3 hours cataloging the new MV outfits instead of studying? Yes. Please don’t question it. Everything is under the cut because its long, there’s really bad quality screenshots, and i went ham on the data analysis :)

General points: - There are three types of outfits in the set. Tucked, Untucked, and Half tucked shirts. Pants are the same as far as I can tell

- All of this is speculative and is in no way fact. Please take the data with a grain of salt, I am horrendous at math and can’t count for shit

- Belts and shoes are reflective and go Kira Kira during lives. Subaru goes crazy over them and has probably already stolen them all

Units

Trickstar - Orange Shoes

Hokuto - Tucked Shirt | Subaru - Untucked Shirt | Mao - Half Tucked Shirt | Makoto - Untucked Shirt

Fine - Peach Shoes

Eichi - Tucked Shirt | Wataru - Untucked Shirt | Yuzuru - Tucked Shirt | Tori - Half Tucked Shirt

Ryuseitai - Red Shoes

Chiaki - Untucked Shirt | Kanata - Tucked Shirt | Tetora - Half Tucked Shirt | Shinobu - Untucked Shirt | Midori - Tucked Shirt

Alkaloid - Teal Shoes

Hiiro - Untucked Shirt | Aira - Untucked Shirt | Tatsumi - Tucked Shirt | Mayoi - Tucked Shirt

Eden - Grey Shoes

Nagisa - Untucked Shirt | Hiyori - Untucked Shirt | Ibara - Untucked Shirt | Jun - Untucked Shirt

2wink - Pink Shoes

Hinata - Half Tucked Shirt | Yuuta - Half Tucked Shirt

Valkyrie - Burgundy Shoes

Shu - Tucked Shirt | Mika - Half Tucked Shirt

Crazy:B - Yellow Shoes

Rinne - Half Tucked Shirt | HiMERU - Tucked Shirt | Kohaku - Tucked Shirt | Niki - Half Tucked Shirt

Undead - Purple Shoes

Rei - Tucked Shirt | Kaoru - Tucked Shirt | Koga - Half Tucked Shirt | Adonis - Half Tucked Shirt

Akatsuki - Burgundy Shoes

Keito - Tucked Shirt | Kuro - Untucked Shirt | Souma - Untucked Shirt

Ra*bits - Teal Shoes

Nazuna - Untucked Shirt | Tomoya - Untucked Shirt | Hajime - Untucked Shirt | Tenma - Untucked Shirt

Knights - Dark Blue Shoes

Leo - Tucked Shirt | Sena - Tucked Shirt | Ritsu - Tucked Shirt | Arashi - Tucked Shirt | Tsukasa - Tucked Shirt

Switch - Green Shoes

Natsume - Tucked Shirt | Tsumugi - Tucked Shirt | Sora - Half Tucked Shirt

MaM - Grey Shoes

Madara - Untucked Shirt

(Do you really need a screenshot? Hes been in like. 90% of the other ones :p)

Jin & Akiomi

Jin - Burgundy Shoes, Untucked Shirt | Akiomi - Dark Blue Shoes, Tucked Shirt

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Data:

In General  - 51 Idols

Tucked Shirts (41%) - 21 Idols | Untucked Shirts (37%) - 19 Idols | Half Tucked Shirts (22%) - 11 Idols

StarPro - 17 Idols

Tucked Shirts (41%) - 7 Idols | Untucked Shirts (41%) - 7 Idols | Half Tucked Shirts (18%) - 3 Idols

CosPro - 12 Idols

Tucked Shirts (25%) - 3 Idols | Untucked Shirts (33%) - 4 Idols | Half Tucked Shirts (42%) - 5 Idols

RyLin - 11 Idols

Tucked Shirts (27%) -  3 Idols | Untucked Shirts (54%) - 6 Idols | Half Tucked Shirts (19%) - 2 Idols

NewDi - 9 Idols

Tucked Shirts (77%) - 7 Idols | Untucked Shirts (11%) - 1 Idol | Half Tucked Shirts (12%) - 1 Idol

(26%) 4/15 Units ([25%] 4/16 if you count Double Face) have members wearing the same shirt. These units are:

Eden (Untucked), 2wink (Half Tucked), Ra*bits (Untucked), and Knights (Tucked)

(53%) 8/15 Units had the same colored shoes. These units are:

Alkaloid & Ra*bits: Teal Shoes

Valkyrie & Akatsuki & Jin: Burgundy Shoes

Eden & MaM: Grey Shoes

Knights & Akiomi: Dark Blue Shoes

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Mini Analysis (that eventually turned into a not so mini analysis)

I think that each character wearing their shirts slightly differently is actually super interesting and shows a little bit of personality for them. Loose shirts are more boyish and athletic, youthful and fun while tucked in shirts give off a more refined and put together appearance. Half tucked just looks lazy in my opinion but also has the best of both worlds, a casual kind of formality.

StarPro having a more or less equal amount of Idols wearing their shirts in all three ways is pretty interesting and really emphasizes the amount of freedom these idols are given based on their agency. It also speaks to how free StarPro units are in relation to other agencies since they are the sole agency without any units who match each other’s shirt wearing tendencies. Everyone’s just kind of everywhere with each unit doing their own thing. Its interesting to note that the only unit in StarPro that doesn’t have all three styles of shirt wearing is Alkaloid. In Mayoi’s own words, Alkaloid is “a newbie who has just made his debut”. Because of they’re new I suspect that they haven’t branched out very much, sticking to the tried and true traditions of idol work that dictates that uniformity with minor deviations is the best for unit outfits. You can totally see it in how they’ve separated themselves into two neat groups: Hiiro with Aira and Tatsumi with Mayoi (yes shippers you can go feral over this fact).

Contrasting StarPro, CosPro has the highest amount of units with matching shirt styles. Eden makes sense since Ibara probably wants the face of the company to look uniform so he made them all wear their shirts the same. Though the decision to leave them untucked leaves me questioning a few things. Do they want to seem more approachable? I guessed before actually seeing the outfits that Eden would either have half tucked or fully tucked shirts mostly because they’re a unit who prioritizes appearances. Having that put together air definitely fits Eden (or at least Adam). 2wink wasn’t a surprise tho. They’re generally a more uniform unit being twins and all. Though again, a bit miffed about the choice for half tucked shirts. While I will freely admit that I don’t read very many Eden or 2wink stories nor have I interacted with them very much, I do think there is merit in being able to understand design choices at a glance. If a 2winkP or an EdenP would like to hazard a guess as to why these two units have shirt wearing styles that doesn’t really fit with my preconceived notions of them please do tell me. But other than that, CosPro is generally really uniform with each unit being more or less balanced. Valkyrie as always has a really strong sense of aesthetics and pairing the half tucked shirt with the tucked shirt was a very good call. Crazy:B, like Alkaloid, is neatly separated into two groups: Rinne with Niki and Kohaku with HiMERU (more shipping fodder for you shippers :p). But contrary to Alkaloid who’s following more conventional idol ideas, i feel like Crazy:B was instructed by Ibara to dress like that. Both to promote the image of unity within CosPro but also to piss Rinne off ww.

I really don’t have much to say on RyLin since I generally don’t like any of the units affiliated with it. I really sorry but I’m pretty indifferent about Ra*bits and Akatsuki. I do have Opinions TM about Undead but that’s for another day. But for now, I will say that Ra*bits all having untucked shirts is very cute and very Ra*bits. The picture perfect image of youth and energy!

Thanks to Knights basically dominating the board with their five person unit all with tucked in pants, the data was skewed way to much into the tucked shirts area wwww. Even if Natsume and Tsumugi didn’t have tucked shirts it would still be the majority wwwww. In all seriousness, tucked in pants is 100% a Knights look and i am living for it. They look so noble even in converse and casual wear. I think Mama having an untucked shirt is also super cute and makes him a lot more huggable. (please refer to the Ra*bits screenshot, its very cute the height difference) Even Sora’s half tucked look is very boyish a cute, very Sora. Honestly each of the agencies’ personalities shone through even through these simple clothes and honestly did a better job of giving me each unit’s personalities at a glance than those 5th Ani outfits did.

Also I have no idea why some units share shoe colors its just a fun thing to point out. Yes I’m pretentious and say burgundy instead of dark red. Shut up. I like burgundy :p

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Extra Notes

- None of these bitches are straight, they’re wearing Converse with cuffed pants! Look me in the face and tell me that wearing converse with cuffed pants is a straight thing. Thats right, you can’t.

- The stage was Knights’ Silent Oath bc it’s a stage with 5 people, has nice lighting, and has multiple parts where I can get all 5 people with a large window of time. Also I can stand listening to Silent Oath 12 times while taking screenshots. The other option was Suisei Halation but I found Silent Oath first :p

- This came from me noticing that Rei had purple converse shoes and laughing my ass off about it before going to check out the other units and spiraling from there

- As I was cataloguing this, I made a mental list of who in Enstars deserves to have fangs on their model and who actually does. I’m not posting that today but if you’re interested....

- None of this was edited. None of it.

- I really should have been studying ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯  time well wasted