#also poor kimi let the kid develop

[tthesongofachilless]

what is with formula one teams and signing drivers who are definitely too young and inexperienced to drive, then the same people will get mad when the driver doesn't perform?

[enhyupn]

enhypen as characters inspired by animes ᯤ 

tagging @youreverydayzebra @ncityy04 @rheyom

ot7!enhypen x gn!reader, fluff, warnings: mentions of (jokingly) dying, swear words, reader’s in a maid outfit in jay’s one but no mentions of a certain gender, word count: 3.3k

a/n most of these aren’t the same as the animes mentioned but instead just inspired or loosely inspired by the plot! also some of these aren’t the same in word count and i apologise for that ]:

∷ heeseung — orange

heeseung as the new kid at school and he’s so pretty that everyone just. Stops in place and just stares at him as he introduces himself

funnily enough you already saw this coming, realising this was the same heeseung the letter you received that morning told you about

what was funnier was the fact that letter was coming from the future you

you didn’t believe it Then because like... it kinda sounds too stupid to be true

but then BOOM there heeseung is

your teacher makes him sit beside you and you’re just trying to wrap your head around how crazy all of this is

your letter even told you that he was going to sit beside you, why was all of this coming true????

you didn’t read on because you were in a rush to get to school but maybe if that letter warned you about how pretty he was, you wouldn’t of been that flustered when he started talking to you

“hey i’m heeseung!” “ummm yeah, i’m y/n... yeah”

when school ends you RACE home to get to that letter again

rest of heeseung + of the members under the cut!

your future self was gonna have a lot of explaining to do...

turns out the future you Let this same heeseung walk out of your life so now you have to fix this

“dear past me, i can’t believe i was this stupid to let him leave my life like this— how stupid am i??”

now you make it your mission to keep your barely started relationship not go rocky

and oh boy would that be a challenge for the years to come

not because heeseung’s a terrible bf, future you just gave terrible tips

everyday after that you and heeseung (like the letter said) turned into great friends

great friends as in friends that people think that are dating

soon that friendship became a relationship... and a very strong one to be honest

your letters were weirdly very accurate

a firework festival... how he confessed to you... all of it was in those letters

honestly you should scold them for letting heeseung get away!!

you secretly wanna tease them that YOU have heeseung by your side and they don’t but... you can’t really do that

you tell heeseung about the letters one day and he just. Stares at you in astonishment

because he also received letters on the same day you got them from future him too

turns out future you and heeseung both regret their decision

poor them but at least present you gets to kiss heeseung whenever you want 😇

not to spoil anything but heeseung didn’t end up walking out of your life <3 instead you two are now sickly in love

∷ jay — maid-sama

you work at a maid café mainly because you needed the money and honestly... it wasn’t even that bad of a job

i mean compared to your school president life — trying to keep teenage boys out of trouble — happily serving polite and friendly (most of the time) customers was definitely a steal

one boy in particular gave you a bit more trouble than the rest of them however

he wasn’t bad or anything, just... a serial heart breaker

jay park was always on your radar due to the fact so many people would go up to you asking you to tell him to be nicer with his rejections

he wasn’t complied to be nicer but 😍 what can you do

safe to say that you didn’t think you had the best relationship with him

you couldn’t understand him even more when you saw him prettily sitting at the tables at your work

may i add, with you in your very own maid outfit as well as a twitching eye

“y/n! looking great” “thanks m-ma-mas—” “your customer service is terrible”

and the fact he came every day after that day made you feel Terrified

and also a little excited to go to work but you’d never admit that!!!

having him stare at you while you cheerily wrote with ketchup on omelettes was... definitely not how you thought your relationship would be like

he would also make small talk too

and visit you after your shift!!! walking you home

now... his daily visits turned into genuine great conversations on the way home

you realised he wasn’t as bad as you made him out to be

he just had strong beliefs that he should only accept a confession if it’s from someone he loves

you didn’t know how... but now You Have Feelings For him.

and seeing him when smile at you every time you serve him at that little maid café... ARGGGG it drove you absolutely mad

the way he oozed out confidence... was sweet and quite literally the prettiest person you’ve ever seen... how could you not

and what other way to confess to him than at the very place your relationship blossomed at!

you wrote “i like you” with ketchup on fried rice for him... yeah

thankfully he was over the moon and Had to hold back kissing you in front of the customers

now you two were dating <3 with the help of a maid café

and that really only left you with one more question

“why did you start visiting this maid café in the first place?”

∷ jake — kimi no todoke

being the quiet student is never. a good thing

especially when you’re ostracised by your class because you never participate

you actually want to but you can’t build any confidence to do so

you never caught the attention of anyone

well... besides a certain popular boy by the name of jake sim

oh boy was this gonna be a culture shock to the girls that have a crush on him

he noticed you on the first day of school when you asked him for directions to your classroom

he won’t ever forget it, the way you had a huge excited smile on his face as the cherry blossoms fell softly around you

he quotes, it looked like you came straight out of heaven because it looked like you had wings on you

he didn’t know how to get your attention though.

every time he tried to do so you wouldn’t even look at him and would just look down at your desk

it hurt him to see you so isolated

that’s when he had the bright idea to ask you if you wanted to walk with him home

bad idea (kinda), because you did accept but you didn’t know what to do the whole time because you’ve never walked home with someone before

it was bad enough that jake was absolutely Stunning. like blindingly attractive

you didn’t know what to say at all

well until you came across a small puppy making it’s way up to the two of you

they were so cute that you just squealed out of excitement

jake was so surprised to hear Something from you that he just instantly put on this huge genuine grin

“there’s no tag on them!” your upsetting tone sent jake into haywire

he literally watched you pet that dog with literal heart eyes he wasn’t even being sutble

he takes a picture of you and he Stupidly leaves the ringer on so you hear him and everything

he was so embarrassed about it

“did you just take a picture of me?” “y-yeah” “oh... is that what people do?”

you literally had no idea how to interact with people so you thought what he did was Normal

somehow this caused jake’s crush on you to develop Quick

especially when you grabbed his hand to pull you closer to the dog

his heart was beating so fast he didn’t know what to do

he is self proclaimed the biggest dog lover but for some reason... he wasn’t even looking at the dog, not even trying to play with it

he was just staring at you with his doting eyes as you smiled and giggled while playing with the dog

he wasn’t gonna confess yet though because he still has to develop your relationship

in true shoujo romance anime fashion, he was gonna confess twelve episodes (probably a year) later <3

∷ sunghoon — ao haru ride

no i definitely did not put sunghoon for ao haru ride because i have a huge crush on kou and sunghoon... /s

you and sunghoon were in the same elementary class because... fate

you had the biggest crush on him and even your mom knew him because he was a well known figure skater

but who didn’t have a crush on him was the real question

being the young confident elementary student you were, you always talked to him

forever talking to him to the point where you two were Actually really good friends

you thought you were on cloud9

but. turns out figure skating takes a lot more training than you had thought so

you literally cried Buckets and Buckets when you found out he had to train in like russia for an unsure amount of time

there was no way on contacting him too since you had no phone, no nothing

so he left. and you didn’t know what to do with yourself

ok flash forward noises

now you’re in high school! still... gripping onto that crush you have on sunghoon

but you think it’s fine since you are Functioning without him i guess

well until you bump into someone with a very familiar voice...

“watch where you’re going” talk about passive Aggressive 🤨

and when you look up because obviously you were gonna start yelling at him

well. You just froze in shock when you were faced with sunghoon’s raised eyebrow smirking at you

and what was the logical thing to do apparently?

cry. right in front of him.

he just froze as he watched you sob while everyone stared at him

he was trying to explain himself while at the same time Dragging you Away because he couldn’t let you just cry in the middle of the hallway

now you two were at the top of some stairway as you sniffled recovering from your endless crying

“why were you crying? “how could i not when you’re here?”

turns out that sunghoon Knew you were at the same school as him but wanted you to figure it out yourself

it took you almost six months. to figure out sunghoon was in your grade.

but what next? do you rekindle your friendship or...

“i’ve changed” okay maybe that answered your question

and before he could even explain himself he just... Got up and left????? for no reason

and that’s when tsundere sunghoon started to come into play.

you constantly tried talking to him but it would end up with the two of you bickering

you walked home the same way too

weirdly enough He was very nice to you sometimes

letting you place your head on his shoulder, lovingly smiling at you, being very Oddly romantic

he was giving you mixed signals.

and there came that old elementary school crush... gearing back up for a second round

“what are we?” now you decided being bold was the right thing to do

he just stared at you and shrugged.

now here comes the water works

you started crying uncontrollably Again but this time sunghoon looked really guilty and comforted you

he even hugged you. (Wow... Development)

he then explained to you that he Likes you (omg) but he’s scared that he might have to pack up and leave you again and he doesn’t want you to get too attached

and you’re like “we have each other’s numbers this time though?”

sunghoon’s just like Ohhhh

that’s how you started dating

and rekindled that elementary crush (successfully)

∷ sunoo — toilet-bound hanako-kun

being the bold and adventurous person you are. You decided to call onto your school’s very own ghost

because you had the biggest crush on this upperclassman you needed the support of a Spirit to help you

“ummmm hey... school spirit, i’m kinda in love with someone and i heard—” “hi” and then you fall onto the ground because something scares you

turns out the spirit’s name is sunoo and you just summoned him

it also turns out this spirit was kinda cute 😟

he had offered you something like a book — telling you if you follow all the rules — you’ll end up dating your crush

turns out it was just a middle school romance book you could of bought at dollar tree.

you were rightfully mad at him Since all you did was end up embarrassing yourself

somehow during your argument, your eyes caught a glimpse of something in his pocket

you took it. because you deserved it

and ATE IT when sunoo told you that it grants you any wish when consumed

you didn’t even need to listen to any of the disclaimers because it was already in your stomach

one things turns into another and now you’re a spiritually bound fish to sunoo.

turns out what you ate was mermaid scales and he needed to eat one too so you could turn human (he told you he can’t explain it because it’s a long story!)

you two are now bonded together (4lyfe 🥺🤞) and you aren’t that happy due to the fact he was always teasing you and playing around with you!!!!

you were now his human assistant.

you helped him with cleaning the toilets and he helped you by saving you from the supernatural

very well balanced relationship

you grew very fond of sunoo as time went on

even though you almost died a few times... he was always there to save you from whatever the spiritual world had to offer

i won’t spoil anything but... school spirit sunoo seemed to have a soft spot for you too 😇

you showed him your passion for art and everything like that

you tried to dodge questions about the... y’know... why he was a spirit

knowing that it would probably hurt him

plus he didn’t have all those things coming after him for nothing

falling in love with a ghost wasn’t what... you were expecting when you first joined your school

but i guess you had no choice since he was spiritually bound to you!

∷ jungwon — whisper of the heart

you loved the library dearly, you loved reading and writing— just books in general

your favourite place was a really big cosy library a few minutes away from your house

you had always borrowed more than three books every visit

and every time you would look at who borrowed the book, the same exact name would show up each book you borrowed

“yang jungwon... he seems to have good taste in books”

you would dreamily sigh thinking about what this jungwon looked like

later on in the week you were writing a story at the park— y’know, normal things

your friend called you out of the blue for some reason rushing for you to help them

out of panic you forgot your book on the bench and didn’t realise when you had finally finished helping out your friend

to your surprise there was already someone sitting on the bench

and Reading Your Very Own Story

you literally just run up to him and snatch it from his hands because you’re embarrassed!!!

what didn’t help was the fact that the first thing he did was Laugh in your face about it .

he called your story stupid!!! and critiqued it!!!!

you just bicker with him and complain to your friend about it later that night

the next day you thought that... maybe if you went to the library again you might spot this yang jungwon

so you make it your mission to get to the library

funnily enough your plan had failed in an instant when your eyes caught a cat that you just became curious about

you followed it because it just wouldn’t stop getting away from you

it also looked like it was taking you somewhere but 😦

after a tiring ten minutes of following this cat from hell and back. It brought you to this old antique shop

you instantly fell in love with the store and everything in it

you were so distracted by everything that you hadn’t realised someone was behind you

you could feel your eyes widen when you realised it was the same boy from the park

holding that same cat you were following too????

“why are you here?” his eyes literally started Squinting at you

he then proceeded to tell you about how his vocal lessons were nearby and more importantly that the cat was His

he asks you if you want to go visit where he does his lessons and Obviously being as curious as you were, you accepted

when he brought you there you could see his eyes instantly sparkle from just being there cute... kinda

he even started to sing for you and that’s when you thought that he wasn’t that bad

some of his teachers started to join in too and before you knew it, the sun was already gone and you’ve spent the whole time with some boy that you were supposed to hate

“jungwon, who’s your friend” your body Froze in shock when you heard that name

jungwon thought you were stupid for not knowing your name and now you realise you’ve been crushing on him this whole time

(i refuse to continue on more with this because it’ll be too long unless some of you want a oneshot of this 😍)

∷ ni-ki — haikyuu

being forced by your teacher to sign up to be some volleyball team’s manager was Not that fun to experience

but there you were, managing a volleyball practice of that very own team

thankfully, it was safe to say you had a good relationship with all of them

and an even Better relationship with a certain volleyball player

nishimura riki and you were practically glued to the hip

you were so incredibly thankful that he was the first one to speak to you when you first started becoming their manager

the rest of them were tall and scary but riki was just tall and friendly

he was so energetic and just So bright that you couldn’t help but look forward to seeing him every day you had practice

he would even teach you how to play volleyball

like he’d be like “isn’t this move so cool? let me teach you it!”

at this point you could be a professional volleyball player with the help of riki

you were overjoyed watching them win their final match to compete in the spring interhigh

you were also incredibly happy to know that riki scored the winning point

he couldn’t stop telling you about it and you just kept excitedly praising him and not to play favourites but you weren’t this excited when heeseung scored the previous winning point

even though you and your team were excited, you could feel how nervous they were when they entered the huge gymnasium

they were surrounded by all the best high school volleyball teams in the country

the very first team they went up against gave them a very Tough time

you remember sweating so hard when the scores were almost the same, the other team leading in that set

you decided that. Maybe you could help

“riki! you can do it” your shouting somehow caused riki to instantly become energised

everything was a blur up until your team had Won the match

and all because you gave riki some encouragement

he literally ran to you the second they had won and almost knocked you down

you didn’t wanna tell him that he was sweaty so you just let him carry on hugging you tightly

the rest of the team was like “why didn’t you cheer us on like you did with riki?”

and when you tried to explain your face just started heating up like crazy

so you ignored the subject.

riki just took it as he was your favourite

but what you didn’t want to tell them was the fact that you had a crush on him

as if it wasn’t obvious enough 😟

[yujachachacha]

Nope.. nope.. nopee.. if fairness is the cause of You being sidelined, i can't accept that.. every midpoll that show You being no.1 in that poll, everyone seems like united to bring her down.. if that bcs of fairness, why they vote yoshiko again (like in sif poll) not the other member that never get elected and she's still get more screen time in the anime... fck that!

Whoa there.

I’m a You fan too, so I’d also love it if You got more screen time. It’s all right to be disgruntled about it, but I still think that You being sidelined is at least understandable. I also think there are perfectly valid explanations as to why Yoshiko gets so much attention.

In fact, if you take a closer look at the polls, Yoshiko doesn’t have as many major “wins” as You does.

Look at what I said before: Yoshiko shows up more because she’s a character that needs more growth and development. As you can see in S2E11, Yoshiko still struggles with the fact that she’s not exactly a popular gal (within the anime-verse, not in real life lol). We get that nice little scene with Riko and Maru at the fortune-telling tent because it shows that Yoshiko has friends at her side who support her when she’s down. The audience needs to be told that there’s nothing to worry about - even though Yoshiko’s still kind of a hot mess, she’s working on it with the help of her friends.

I think part of the reason why so many people flock to Yoshiko is that they feel a bit of pity for her. She’s always plagued by misfortune, whether it’s being caught in the rain at inopportune moments, or missing her middle school trip due to catching the flu (see Question #6 in her Q&A section). You, on the other hand, is a popular girl who is well-liked by everyone and quite successful at almost everything she does. If You is already popular in the 2D world and Yoshiko isn’t, why not make it “fair” and give Yoshiko some well-deserved recognition in the 3D world?

As for Yoshiko’s screen time, well…it does certainly help that Yoshiko is a popular character and great for comic relief. Again, like I said before, You is more of a stabilizing force in the group (apart from moments like the being-crushed-by-Maru running gag in the Hakodate episode). She’s there for moments like Chika’s late-night MIRACLE WAVE practice, and for keeping Chika grounded when the mikan-loving leader gets panicked about the school closing down.

I think the fact that You doesn’t show up too often gives these moments more value. When You tells Chika that she’s always wanted to do something with Chika and will always be there for her in S2E11, it’s a very crucial scene. This is something that she’s said before, in S1E1 (when she tells Chika that she’ll join the school idol club) and in S1E11 (in her conversations with Mari and Riko). We don’t see her say it again until S2E11 because You is, at her core, a very private person when it comes to her feelings.

In S1E1, when she briefly showed a sentimental side of herself to Chika, You was quick to wave aside the moment with a giggle and cheerfully hand over a club application; in S1E11, You doesn’t talk about what’s bothering her until Mari directly confronts her about it; in S2E11, You checks to make sure she’s alone before re-enacting the club recruitment calls. We don’t really need to see You declaring her support for Chika too often because we know that she’s the first member who joined Aqours and the most dependable person in the group. When You does say her feelings out loud, however, it’s at moments when You is so full of emotion that she can’t hold herself back. That’s how heartfelt these declarations are.

Is it frustrating that we don’t get more cute and funny filler scenes from You? Sure. But the scenes we do get are pivotal - You rushing to hug Chika after their all-nighter at the deadline for saving the school speaks volumes about how well she knows Chika, and how much she cares for her best friend’s well-being.

I’m getting a bit off-topic here though. Let’s go back to the subject you brought up: the polls. Here are the results of the polls that have been done so far, roughly in chronological order of when the results were revealed; I’ll only be listing the top three for each:

2nd center election (KoiAqua): Midpoll = You / Ruby / Riko; Final = You / Ruby / Riko

Numazu Gamers poster girl: Midpoll = You / Yoshiko / Hanamaru; Final = Yoshiko / You / Hanamaru

Dengeki G’s cover girl: Midpoll = Hanamaru / Yoshiko / You; Final = Hanamaru / You / Chika (Note: Voters had to pick both a girl and a date spot, so some girls showed up multiple times in the final rankings, e.g. You + Date Spot 1 followed by You + Date Spot 2)

7-11 image girl: Midpoll = You / Riko / Hanamaru; Final = Riko / You / Hanamaru

3rd center election (HPT): Midpoll = Yoshiko / Kanan / Hanamaru; Final = Kanan / Yoshiko / Hanamaru

SIF Winter Promo UR (Snowboarding You): Midpoll = Hanamaru / You / Kanan; Final = You / Hanamaru / Kanan

Uraraji hosts (GuuRinPa): Midpoll = Yoshiko / Dia / Kanan; Final = Yoshiko / Dia / Chika (Note: Chika was in 4th place in the midpoll results)

Sega image girl: Midpoll = You / Chika / Hanamaru; Final = Hanamaru / Chika / Yoshiko

LisAni cover girl: You / Kanan / Chika (Note: AFAIK midpoll results weren’t released)

SIF 5th anniversary campaign girl: Midpoll = You / Riko / Yoshiko; Final = Yoshiko / Mari / Riko

I might have missed one or two, but these are all the polls I can recall at the moment. Using these results, here’s how many times each girl has won an election:

3 times = You, Yoshiko

2 times = Hanamaru

1 time = Riko, Kanan, Dia, Chika

0 (*Chika voice* It’s so frustrating!) = Ruby, Mari

Just based on the final results, you can guess that You, Yoshiko, and Maru are the most popular girls, with Ruby and Mari being near the bottom. And yes, with these numbers, it does seem that Yoshiko is abnormally popular. However, when you take some additional factors into account, Yoshiko’s ranking actually drops below You’s.

Here’s what you need to consider: why did a certain girl win a poll? And how much weight should you give that poll?

While the elections and polls do indicate a character’s popularity level, they only do so to a certain extent. You topped out polls very often in the early days, with her crowning moment being the KoiAqua center election. Winning a center election, especially at such an early stage for Aqours, is a really big deal.

Recall that when KoiAqua was released, the anime hadn’t aired yet, so many of the characters lacked substantial depth. In fact, the KoiAqua audio dramas provided the most character development at that point, as it established things such as: (1) You knowing when to hold Chika back to prevent poor Riko from going insane, (2) Kanan and Mari being chill while Dia stresses out in the background, and (3) Hanamaru getting along surprisingly well with Yoshiko’s fallen angel antics while also doting on Ruby. Our favorite yousoro kid provided the most interesting character profile at the time (Anchan once mentioned how “yousoro~” was already popular with crowds back in 2015 when they were promoting the KimiKoko album), and established herself as a popular character from very early on in the history of LLS.

To make it fair for others to get their chance in the spotlight, most people opted to vote for other characters in later polls. Even as a You fan myself, I didn’t vote for You in the 3rd single center election (for HAPPY PARTY TRAIN), and wasn’t really rooting for her in subsequent elections either. Poll results tend to be skewed because people want the distribution of wins to be “fair”. Chika and Riko don’t score too well in center elections because they had “Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai?”, and You slipped down to around 5th place for the 3rd center election. This doesn’t mean they got less popular - it just means that the votes are going to other characters that deserve a shot at winning.

A center election is kind of like the ultimate prize - the character gets to have the main solo of a song, and be the star of an animated PV. Center elections have been a key part of the LL history ever since the inception of µ’s. These songs are “the story we realize together” as fans can influence what they want to see in the next single. Everyone knows that You is the center of KoiAqua, as it’s a major part of LLS history and is guaranteed multiple performances in live concerts. How many LL fans can you say will remember who the 7-11 image girl is in a year or two? Like, if I had to assign each poll a score of how important it is from 1 to 5, I’d probably give something like the LisAni cover girl a 1, the Sega cover girl a 2, and the center election a 10. Yes, you read that correctly. With how crucial music is to Love Live, you can’t really say that winning the rights to a limited-time figurine or one-time illustration tops a center election win. 

Because You won a major election, that does incentivize people to not vote for her in these polls. However, I think it speaks to You’s popularity that she gets 1st place in nearly every midpoll result despite this. Her ultimately failing to get 1st place at the end of the poll is less of an effort by others to “bring her down”, and more of a push to “raise others up”. Before the midpoll results come out, most people tend to vote haphazardly. After the results come out, people usually choose someone within the top three (as those girls have a better chance at winning) to support and then vote in a more organized manner. That’s how Suwawa and Aikyan ended up in an aggressive Twitter campaign for their girls during the HPT center election - Yoshiko was shown as 1st place while Kanan was 2nd in the midpoll results. The fact that You is nearly always in 1st place before this targeted voting begins is a sure sign that she’s generally popular overall.

It’s not like You never won a poll after the KoiAqua election, either - she won the SIF promo UR election last year, plus she became the LisAni cover girl earlier this year. Granted, the LisAni girl appeals were done while Season 1 was airing, and were made by the seiyuu to boot (so this might be a case of Shukashuu’s popularity helping out), but the fact still remains that it’s You who graced the cover of LisAni Vol. 29 back in May.

Now, what about Yoshiko winning the SIF Anniversary election? Since she already had two wins under her belt, wouldn’t it seem fair to give it to someone like Mari or Ruby?

First off, I did say that these polls aren’t necessarily a popularity contest, but that doesn’t mean that popularity has no effect on the results. The SIF 5th Anniversary Election was a unique poll because unlike other recent polls, it was literally a popularity contest (with a touch of nostalgia, as evidenced by Nico getting first place for µ’s). That meant that people would cast aside whose “turn” it was to win something, as they’d simply be voting for the campaign girl of their choice.

You also have to remember that this poll was a lot more well-known to the global community than other (non-center election) LLS polls due to it being SIF-based and involving all three LL generations. Like, I was actually surprised that Mari scored 2nd place for Aqours in the final tally because she’s not that popular in Japan. However, Mari does enjoy a lot of popularity in the English-speaking community, so I suspect that might have played a role in her final rank. The fact that Mari has yet to win anything might have boosted support for her as well.

As for Ruby - well, I predict that because of the Hakodate arc, we’re going to see a lot more love for Ruby in future polls. I’ve already heard stories of people going to shops and finding that prices for Ruby merchandise have started going up. But because those episodes started airing right as the poll was ending (S2E8 first aired on November 25, and the poll closed on November 26), Ruby was still suffering from relative unpopularity at the time. So, although it would have been nice for either Mari or Ruby to win, they simply didn’t have the numbers to support them.

I think that Yoshiko won the SIF election, and deserved to win, for two reasons: (1) Yoshiko is legitimately a popular character, and (2) Yoshiko hadn’t really won a major popularity contest before this.

Let me explain the second point. Recall that earlier in this post, I asked, “why did a certain girl win a poll? And how much weight should you give that poll?” I answered the second question, but didn’t fully address the first. What the first question amounts to is that if you look at Yoshiko’s two other wins, they were given to her for a specific reason rather than out of popularity.

We can illustrate this with another poll result. Hanamaru was 3rd place in the Sega image girl midpoll results, but ended up first place. If we consider the fact that people have a tendency to avoid voting for You because of KoiAqua, then why not vote for poor Chika instead, who’s never done well in polls? Well, in Hanamaru’s focus episode, she became strongly associated with Rin due to their shared self-consciousness about their femininity. Guess who the Sega image girl for µ’s was?

If it wasn’t obvious, then yes, Rin was the former Sega image girl.

So was this poll really an indication of popularity/fairness, or more like people voting for whoever they thought was the “rightful” winner of a certain prize?

A more famous example is the 3rd center election. This is a story that many people probably know by now, but I’ll tell it just in case: Kanan ranked last place in the 2nd center election, and had been in the bottom ranks for other polls before. The 3rd center election happened to start after S1 aired, and everyone was feeling particularly sensitive about how much Kanan had suffered (both in the anime sense during the Mijuku DREAMER episode, and in the meta sense for not getting a lot of lines initially in S1). People were insanely emotional about Kanan being able to go from the neglected character to the adored, beautiful star of the next major Aqours album, and celebrated triumphantly when it turned out that she actually won the election.

What’s important to remember with these “rightful” wins is that they have no bearing on whether it was that character’s “turn” to win - because if that win should have been given to the character in the first place, why should it count? (Song center elections are an exception to these wins not counting as a “turn”, which should hopefully be obvious by now after my explanation of their importance in LL.)

With that in mind, let’s look at Yoshiko’s first win - the Numazu Gamers election. Yoshiko was perceived as the “rightful” winner of that one because she was the Aqours member who had Numazu featured prominently in her character profile. You does also live in the area, but IIRC this fact was never established until the anime started airing. In addition, Yoshiko is described as an avid fan of gaming - and who better to represent a Gamers store than a gamer herself? Yoshiko did really deserve to win this one.

Now, how about the Uraraji poll? I’m gonna be honest here - I consider this more of a seiyuu poll than a character poll. Because Uraraji is hosted by the seiyuu, the voting for the hosts was really done with the seiyuu in mind. Kanan probably performed well in the midpoll results at first because Suwawa has such a calming radio voice, but ultimately most folks decided that someone else should have a chance to be a radio host. Ainya and Suwawa already have radio shows, and Kinchan has a regular gaming stream, so they were probably set aside for that reason. As entertaining as Shukashuu, Furirin, and Rikyako are, they’re kind of erratic on air and prone to wild behavior (LOL sorry guys).

Anchan was the first host of Uraraji, and has proven herself to be a capable leader of Aqours. She’s also hosted her own radio show before, so it’s likely that she was voted as a safe choice. Arisha, despite her busy schedule, was probably voted in as a combination of (1) being able to keep everyone in line during the show and (2) people wanting Dia to get some love in the polls.

So, what about Yoshiko/Aikyan?

All right, now here’s something I personally remember from Twitter at the time - the Uraraji election was done after Kanan was crowned the winner of the 3rd single election. When Aikyan found out that Yoshiko had slipped from 1st place to 2nd place, she posted an absolutely heartbreaking message about it. I’m too lazy to look for the original tweet, sorry…but roughly, she said something along the lines of it being frustrating to have been so close to winning, despite all the work she put into campaigning for Yoshiko (seriously, Aikyan and Suwawa were spamming tweets every day towards the end of the 3rd center election, going as far as snapping cute selfies to entice people to vote for their character). She vowed that the 4th center election would be her time to be victorious (as 4 is a number associated with death in Asia; quite fitting for a little demon).

(In fact, while it seems like Hanamaru is on most people’s minds for the 4th election - or at least that’s what I’ve seen on social media - I’ve already decided to vote for Yoshiko on behalf of Aikyan. )

I don’t remember where the idea spawned, but I did see a lot of talk afterwards about giving Yoshiko the #1 spot in the Uraraji poll to sort of “make up” for the 3rd center election loss (and also safeguard against Aikyan possibly getting crushed again if Yoshiko happened to not stay within the top 3). Granted, Yoshiko had already been doing pretty well in the poll, but the number of people pledging support for her grew exponentially during this time. Thus, even if you ignore the fact that the Uraraji election was more of a win for Aikyan than Yoshiko, it also happened to be a consolation prize. :\

So with that, we have You with two popularity contest wins under her belt (SIF promo UR poll and LisAni girl) plus a center election win (which alone probably counts as winning, like, 5 polls lol). Yoshiko has one (the SIF Anniversary poll), plus two wins that were sort of given to her. I think it’s safe to say that it seems pretty “fair” for poor Yoshiko to get some love.

In the end, you are allowed to be mad about You not getting more screen time. Does it seem unfair that she’s not winning more polls or getting more screen time? A little, yeah. But the fact remains that she’s a bit too popular for her own good, and she already won a major election (KoiAqua). It’d actually be unfair if You got to have a center song under her belt plus a lot of screen time plus more poll victories. When you take certain factors into consideration, the SIF Anniversary poll is really Yoshiko’s only legitimate popularity vote win. Please don’t abuse the poor fallen angel - she already goes through enough;;

And as a final note: honestly, I don’t really think the polls have too much impact on the anime. It’s already established that the anime-verse is separate from other branches of the series (e.g. Dia not being a school idol fan in the SIF stories, Kanan being the first one to join Aqours in the manga, Maru’s childhood friend being Ruby rather than Yoshiko in the SIDs). Necessities of plot and character growth are what mostly make up screen time. Why would the fact that one of the girls got to be a Sega image girl or a SIF campaign girl have anything to do with this…?

[irishcoffeeslushie]

Nobuta wo Produce review (excerpts) - II

Disclaimer: I didn’t write this, although I wish I had. Source.

The beauty of Nobuta wo Produce is that it doesn’t purport to be anything other than a high school drama, and that’s precisely what makes it so much more than just a high school drama. (Am I even getting my point across? Lol) What I’m trying to say is that the characters are every inch high school kids — no more, no less, neither dumbed down nor savvied up. But they speak from the heart because the writing keeps it all REAL and just lets the characters be themselves, be the thinking, feeling, self-aware teens that they are.

This drama explores the inner universe of adolescence, governed by its own whimsical vagaries and constant flux of emotions. And I love the judicious use of voice-overs as the main characters ponder such things as the future and the uncertainty of life. The dialogue is intelligent without being pseudo-intellectual, complex without being contrived (uh, Dawson’s Creek, anyone? man, talk about a series that tried too hard to be smart and deep and witty, but always felt like it was written by 40-year-olds *roll eyes*). The writing of NwP doesn’t try to be all these, it just IS. Just because the drama is about a bunch of high school kids doesn’t mean it has to be infantile and shallow, nor does it have to play at being implausibly grown-up.

The high school stereotypes are here in NwP, but with a distinctive Jdorama twist. True, the Class Clowns aka the Destiny Duo may not have the most gut-bustingly funny of spiels, but at least they never annoyed me, and always seemed to be having so much fun in their own little world — making funny puns, and punny fun. Beetlejuice Guy would be the closest thing to the resident Obsessive Basket Case, and adds a dash – just a dash! – of signature J-screwiness to the overall flavor of Class 2-B. Only Bando and the Bandettes are given the extreme treatment of all the 2-B students.

The grown-up characters are shown to NOT know all the answers to life, or possess the key to the Fount of Adult Wisdom. They’re mostly shown to be… big kids, really, just more beat-up around the edges and looking the worse for wear, maybe a little wiser and more jaded, and more accepting of the realities and disappointments of life. Hirayama the Tofu Guy (Takahashi Katsumi) provides a solid, comforting presence as Akira’s ever-obliging guardian — though not without his own share of regrets and hang-ups. Hirayama has an interesting dynamic not just with Akira, but with Akira’s volatile CEO father (Masu Takeshi). Both men take their stake in Akira’s upbringing quite seriously, but share an interesting “good cop, bad cop” approach to this responsibility. (LMAO @ the time both grown men bond while assembling the Nobuta keychains in Tofu Guy’s living room!)

I love how the Kiritani family feels like a real family — well, ¾ of a real family. And Nakajima Yuto as Shuji’s li’l bro Koji is the most perfect little boy you will ever lay eyes on… except that this was five years ago and he’s not so little anymore (heh heh). The scenes where the three Kiritani boys (small, medium and large) are just chillin’ at home — dad cooking dinner, Koji doing his homework, Shuji (with that topknot, lol!) patching up a torn sock — are always enjoyable to watch. Ditto the dynamic between Shuji and Koji — case in point: the moment the brothers share in the haunted house in Episode 3 is heartwarming without being hokey. It helps, of course, that Kame and Yuto (then a Johnny’s Jr. who also performed in the “Seishun Amigo” music video, poor kid, lol) share a wonderful on-screen chemistry.

The realism of Nobuta wo Produce doesn’t quite have the gritty, inner-city feel of, say, Dangerous Minds or Stand and Deliver, because there are offsetting moments of hyperreality (e.g. the horrific bullying, the vandalism/sabotage arc, the zany characters) as well as surrealism (e.g. the living spirits, the dream about Santa Claus, and the dream about Aoi) that all add flavor and character to the drama without overpowering its faithful depiction of Planet High School. This balancing act between hyperreal and surreal is a tricky line to tread: a production that exaggerates plot and characters will always feel facile despite any entertainment value (uh, Hana Kimi anyone?), while a drama that is too dependent on fantasy/dream elements can feel rarefied and thus run the risk of alienating the viewer.

The strength of NwP is that it doesn’t skew towards either extreme, but reaches a comfortable — yet dynamic — equilibrium, which is no small testament to the virtuosity of both writing and direction. The finished product retains its solid core of realistic narrative/character development and naturalistic technique, but is complemented by these pleasantly unexpected but contrasting touches of loopy Jdorama hyperbole and floaty phantasmagoria. This drama, ladies and gents, is pure magic realism at its working best.

… Such is the flipside of magic realism, this nebulous nexus of the strange, the dark, the frightening. The drama gives no explanation for the dream, and very wisely leaves it at that.

So, thanks to Nobuta wo Produce I will always, always, always hold Kame and Pi dear beyond words no matter what mess they’ve made — and continue to make — of their post-NwP career trajectories. Maki I remain fond of despite her lackluster performances in Hana Kimi and Kurosagi; I know I’ve been extra hard on her in my past reviews, but only because I think she’s capable of better things and hope a suitable film or TV project will eventually come her way. But my fondness for Maki is cosmically — cosmically I say!!! — eclipsed by all that I feel for Kamenashi of the pencil-thin brows, and Yamashita of the dead-fish stare. Now wait a minute, some of you might ask: How dare she even make that claim? Isn’t this E.G., who uses her blog to flay those boys alive as if there were no tomorrow? Isn’t she the harpy who likes to chain them to a rock and feast on their livers — again, and again, and again?

Er, yes on both counts. It’s haaard to explaiiiin, but the reason I rip these poor boys apart all the time is because I like to play with my food because they mean THIS MUCH to me. (Readers go, “Eeeehhh? Nandeee” *headscratch*) But see, such is the power of Shuji to Akira, that whatever Kame and Pi do in the years to come — whether as J-pop pinups warbling way off-key, or wannabe actors out to carve their own niche in the Leading Man Canon — I will be there to watch them, and love them in spite of it… maybe even because of it. Even if it makes my ears bleed, my eyeballs implode, and my spleen liquefy and dribble out the nearest body orifice (don’t ask which). I am their F-A-N, and their F-A-N for L-I-F-E — and all because of a pair of seventeen-year-old schoolboys who liked to bond over soy milk and take sunset bicycle rides together.

But I’m also the kind of fan who harbors no illusions about Kame and Pi’s dramatic abilities (for Pi, it’s the lack thereof haha); I’ve seen enough of their collective oeuvre (practically all of it, actually *blushes*) to know that Nobuta wo Produce is the best work they’ve ever done, or will ever get to do. (Like I said, that drama was puuure maaaagic!) Since NwP, each boy has made exactly ONE other drama I believe they can be proud of: Tatta Hitotsu no Koi for Kamenashi, and Proposal Daisakusen for Yamashita. (Never mind the rest; the rest are just the necessary evils you slog through to ultimately earn the title of “Kame/Pi Completist.” The reward? A 10-disc set of KAT-TUN+NEWS’ greatest hits. And a lifetime supply of cheap wine. *Kame fans remember Kami no Shizuku and promptly lapse into a coma* And one year’s subscription to AnAn. *Pi fans go: “YamaPi showah… chunyuu!”* Lulzzz)

Between the two, Kame is by far a more natural and versatile actor than his pink-loving seishun amigo; he does drama and comedy better than YummyPi my little Gummi Bear, who really can’t do much but… be himself. That’s why I’ve always thought that Yamashita Tomohisa’s best dramas — Lunch Queen, Stand UP!, and natch, NwP — worked so well because they just let him be his weird, spacey and endearing self — unlike the more recent ones which sucked the sweet, the warmth, the life out of the boy and left this… sleepwalking six-pack with deep-fried hair in his place.

And so, such has been my own “self-revelatory odyssey” that went from knowing nothing about these two boys a little over a year ago, to recoiling from the first photo of theirs (see above) that I came across (and it also made me go, “Egads, these kids look weeeiiirrrrd!” — sounds familiar? well hello-oo E.G.’s KimuTaku Space Odyssey, lol), to acquiring Nobuta wo Produce (I’d heard good things about this netizen hit, but left it on the back burner because of… said photo), to finally giving in and watching the damn drama. And just like my experience with Pride, the rest is history, my embarrassing (and at times, downright incomprehensible) Kame/Pi fangirly devotion lovingly smeared all over this blog. It’s too late to take it back, to act more dignified and unsullied by this dark, guilty pleasure of mine. But, hey — if Nobuta and Akira could live with their weird little selves, I suppose so can I.

And to end this review with the wise words of a Green Day song:

“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right. I hope you had the time of your life…”

To Shuji, Akira and Nobuta, I hope you had, and continue to have, the time of your life… because you sure as heck gave me mine.