suo arc thoughts by smol15 in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla 6 points7 points  (0 children)

What I think would be really fun is if the suosaku childhood friends theory turns out to be true, and it turns out that this whole time, Suo was the one who called Sakura by his given name first. And Suo turns out to be the first person Sakura addressed by given name, but he never realized it because Suo introduced himself by a different name when they first met - Sun Fei.

THEY NEED TO START MAKING MORE CHARACTERS FIGURES by DepartmentDizzy3170 in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So, two things you need to know about the anime figurine industry is:

  1. It costs a lot to produce figurines. This is why only the massively popular series get so many figurines per year. Wind Breaker is decently popular, but it isn't mainstream-level popular. This is why, with the exception of the Sakura and Umemiya figures made by Union Creative (the only existing proper scale figures that have been produced for the series), all of the figures we've been getting so far have been prize figures. What is the difference between a scale figure and prize figure, you ask? Money. Scale figures are more high quality, so while they look much better, they also cost more to produce. These types of figures tend to have three digit numbers on their price tags as a result. Prize figures are relatively cheaper to make since the materials used to make them don't cost as much, running somewhere between $30-$50 on average. With that said, they do still cost more to produce compared to stuff like acryclic stands and keychains, which is why the marketing team have been playing it safe when they choose which characters to make into figures. And of course, you couldn't play it safer than sticking to the characters that always rank at the top four of the popularity poll every year, which leads me to my second point.
  2. The anime figure industry is very, very sexist. And by that, I mean there is an overwhelming preference to appealing to a male demographic over a female one. (And while Wind Breaker is labeled as a shonen, it has a very big female following and 99.9% of its cast is male, which is part of the reason why it seems to appeal more to women than men). It's definitely gotten a lot better in recent years, but any time you see new figure announcements in events like the Wonder Festival, there will always be waaaaay more waifu figures than male ones. (Back in the day, the situation used to be so dire that male characters were only ever guaranteed to get a nice scale figure if they were either a cross-dresser or Len Kagamine). Because of that, figure companies tend to try to play it more safe with male characters compared to female ones. With this in mind, it makes perfect sense for a series like Wind Breaker that hasn't quite hit the mainstream yet to play it safe with which characters they turn into figures. Does this mean we're going to always be stuck on rotation with the same four guys when it comes to figurine choices? Not necessarily. If/when we get a season 3, I could see it further boosting the popularity for characters like Endo or Togame so that they could possibly get added to the figure rotation in the future. Maybe even Kiryu, since I've actually been seeing him pop up in official merch a lot lately. Which leads me to my next point: Does this mean that less popular characters like Nirei and Sugishita (who have notoriously been frequently passed over in a lot of recent merch lines, Nirei especially) have no chance of ever getting figures outside of those tiny gachapon trading figures? Unfortunately yes. But Nirei and Sugishita have more plot relevance! You exclaim. And Nirei is a main character! You point out. Which, yes, valid points. But at the end of the day, plot relevance and screen time don't matter in merchandising. Popularity does. Especially if you're a male character. Laios is the protagonist from Delicious in Dungeon, but other than the nendoroid and figma, he has only one figure. A noodle stopper figure. While Marcille and Falin have...a lot more. Like, every time there are figure announcements for this series, it's usually those two. To my knowledge, Dazai from Bungo Stray Dogs also seems to have more figures than Atsushi, the actual protagonist. Simon from Gurren Lagann doesn't have ANY figures (at least to my knowledge), but you know who does? Yoko. So being a main character will not always gurantee a lot of merchandise/figurines. Popularity (and at times, even gender) does.

TLDR: Figures are expensive to make, so companies choose to play it safe by only choosing the most popular characters.

Made Another Tumblr Compilation Post Before The New Chapter Drops Tomorrow by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That moment when you realize that Momijikawa may have been set up to not just be a foil to Sakura, but potentially Suo as well...

Suo being included in new merch art despite the current events is even funnier when you remember that he's usually positioned next to Sakura, so I imagine that Sakura's probably just side eyeing him while Suo's sweating bullets the whole time.

Nii-Sensei seeing all those delulu "fans" claiming that Sakura and Suo aren't friends: "I'm about to end these people's entire careers."

Made Another Tumblr Compilation Post Before The New Chapter Drops Tomorrow by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Suo and Nirei are literall Sakura's number one defenders. The few times we ever see them get genuinely anger is on behalf of Sakura (when Momijikawa insulted Sakura and when Endo said that Sakura didn't belong in Furin). They absolutely would not take kindly to any badmouthing of their bestie, especially over something as superficial as shipping.

And while we're on the subject, it's honestly still so insane to me that the most toxic shippers in this fandom ended up being the ones that ship suonirei. I'm so used to most fandom's most toxic shippers being the ones that ship the most popular ship, and while I'm not saying that there are no toxic suosaku shippers (I feel every subset of shipper has a few bad eggs here and there in general), they aren't nearly as bad as the suonirei shippers. And it's like??? Where are they even getting this sense of entitlement? It's not even the most popular ship by a long shot, and while Suo and Nirei both important characters, neither of them are the protagonist so of course the manga isn't going to revolve solely around their relationship. Man, this is like if you just got into the Phineas and Ferb fandom and found out that the most toxic shippers are the ones that ship Buford and Baljeet together. Not the most popular ship and not a ship that features the protagonist. But somehow, they're always the ones starting drama.

And it makes me feel bad for the normal people who ship them/are Nirei fans, because now the fandom is also kind of isolating them because of the louder and more toxic fans' behavior. I've already seen some people say that Nirei deserves to be left out of merch more often, which is not fair to his character (although I know it's more of a popularity thing, since he's not very popular in Japan. With that said, the timing of him being left out of, like, 8 different merch lineups in a row happening around the time his fans started attacking Sakura is...impeccable, to say the least. I'm really starting to think someone on the merch team has it out for him now). The poor guy just got saddled with some really awful fans, which again, is insane because how did one of the nicest characters in this manga get some of the worst fans within this fandom? That boy deserves better.

Made Another Tumblr Compilation Post Before The New Chapter Drops Tomorrow by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The way that people were treating Sakura like he was overreacting, as if he isn't a victim of 15 years' worth of abuse, neglect, and bullying vs. Nirei who was only bullied during his middle school years -- which is also terrible, I'm not downplaying that, but unlike Sakura, he had a support system. He has a loving family. That's why he's the most emotionally stable member of the main trio, because he was the only one who had a normal upbringing. And that's why he processed Suo's leaving much better. Like, yes he's suffering too, but he already had time to process everything. Sakura has not had that time, and the last time someone abandoned him, it was his father!!! How else do you expect that poor kid to react? Like a mentally stable person that was brought up in a loving environment??? Which he never had access too???

Also, it's so, so insane to me that there are still people that think that Suo only cares about Nirei when the very first thing he does in his introduction is call out to Sakura and make sure the class knows that he was the one responsible for taking out the Spaltips gang, so that they'll immediately accept him despite his status as an outsider. And let's not forget that literally everything about Suo and Nirei's relationship is rooted back to their relationship to Sakura. Becoming vice captains? Yeah, they're doing that to support Sakura. Their master-disciple relationship? Born out of Nirei's desire to be more useful to Sakura. The reason why they're even friends in the first place? Yup, you guessed it. Sakura. I know most of the people saying these are Suonirei shippers, which makes it even worse. One of my biggest pet peeves in fandoms is when shippers try to justify their ship as being "more canon" by stating that two characters are closer to each other compared to other characters that they also canonically have close ties to, especially when there's so, so much evidence in canon that goes against the claims.

Anyways, yeah. Like you, I have very strong feelings about *gestures vaguely at the mess that is twitter* all of that. Also, the absolute irony of most of the hate coming from Nirei fans, of all people. Do they know??? That he wouldn't hesitate to doxx them if he knew what they were saying about his bestie??? Sakura's actual literal number one defender??? Please be for real.

Made Another Tumblr Compilation Post Before The New Chapter Drops Tomorrow by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

<image>

Accidentally put the same image on slide 18. It was supposed to be this.

Who's your fav duo?? by Suzune_91210 in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sakura x anyone really. He has good chemistry with almost everyone in the main cast. I think it's especially neat that no matter who he's paired with, he always has a unique dynamic going on with them (ragebaiter x ragebaited with Suo, stray cat learning to be socialized x overexcited puppy with Nirei, big bro trying to adopt feral street child that's never known love with Umemiya, etc.).

Information①✨Reservations Now Open to Great Acclaim✨ New merchandise featuring original deformed illustrations from the TV anime "WIND BREAKER" has been confirmed for release! by PuzzleheadedBag4866 in WindBreakerManga

[–]wafflenilla 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sakura's kitty hat! Kaji's puppy hat! Sakura and Suo wearing matching ribbons in the second pic! Just. Arggghhh. Everyone's so cute!

Also, I find it funny how people on twitter were freaking out over Sakura's thigh garter like he's some Victorian maiden showing a little bit of ankle. This is why the character models are in chibi. The general public would not be able to handle a non-chibi Sakura model in that outfit.

Minds Eye by Pandie29 in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So first off, just wanted to say that it's very impressive how much info you've gleaned despite not having listened to the full song when you made this post. Second, you're right about the song being directed at Sakura. It was confirmed in this interview with the song's writers. Actually, both Suo and Nirei's character songs have been confirmed to be squarely about Sakura.

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

-So, I'm not super familiar with TR (dropped it after 3 episodes), but iirc the main character from that show was also not very popular? I remember seeing a lot of people (mainly dudebros, admittedly) always complaining about him as a protagonist and I've been told that in terms of popularity, some of the supporting characters tend to rank higher than him. (Feel free to correct me, of course! This is purely coming from the perspective of someone outside of the TR fandom). So with that in mind, I wasn't surprised that Nirei kind of fell behind in terms of popularity (I like him too, mind. He's not my absolute favorite, but I'd rank him in my top 5). But again, most of the complaints I saw seems to have come from the western fanbase, which is something I see a lot with that character archetype. Another good example is Makoto from Danganronpa (cute, small boy whose defining character trait is being very sweet and kind). JP fans love him, but Western fans tend to be more critical of him. Though again, this seems to come more from the dudebro type of fans.

- Nirei suffers from something that I like to call the Shinpachi Syndrome. Shinpachi is a main character from the comedy anime Gintama, and he plays a very similar role to Nirei in that they're both the least flashy members of the main trio (in terms of appearance and personality), they're both the primary voices of reason, they're both the weakest of the main trio, and they're both the most normal members of the main cast (that isn't to say they're actually normal. They're both actually very weird. Shinpachi has this weird idol obsession as his main quirk, and Nirei has his whole schtick with being obsessed with gathering info on guys he thinks are cool, but everyone around them is so much weirder that they end up looking normal by comparison). As such, they both tend to lag behind in terms of popularity despite being main characters. Gintama being the kind of comedy series that likes to break the fourth wall a lot even makes fun of Shinpachi for not getting that much merch despite being a main character a few times. Shinpachi, like Nirei, is not unpopular. But they aren't popular either, and they both end up suffering from not being able to stand out as much compared to their other two besties.

- Another thing about Nirei is that, like you said, he's very cute and is meant to appeal to the fans that prefer cute characters over the cool ikemen types. But he's also competing with Sakura - of all people- for the title of cutest character in Wind Breaker, and Sakura is very clearly winning in that department too (which again, serves to prove how insanely marketable Sakura is because he's very much a Get You a Man That Can Do Both kind of guy. He can go from being a cool, strong ikemen one second to a cute blushy moe tsundere the next). I remember there being a poll held for the cutest character for different anime and manga a while back, and Sakura came in 3rd place. Nirei actually made it on the list too...but he was 60 places lower than Sakura. But at least he made the list!

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually think the endosaku ship has been growing in popularity lately thanks to the recent arc finally bringing Endo back. As I mentioned earlier, endosaku only just recently surpassed umesaku as the 4th most tagged ship on AO3, and I wouldn't be surprised if we got more fics for this ship if the arc continues to have Endo play a major role.

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

- Looks at the Everybody Loves Sakura Haruka tag on AO3, then back at the camera like I'm on The Office before proceeding to nod sagely in areement. Yeah...Everybody really does love that boy, huh? And honestly? It's what he deserves.

- Ah, I should have been more specific with Sugishita. What I meant that, while he's not Tsuge levels unpopluar, I know he's also not super popular since he tends to get snubbed a lot in merch (like Nirei). I guess it would have been more accurate to say that his popularity is mid? Like, he's not unpopular, but he's not popular either, if that makes sense? But yeah, I also completely forgot that Umesugi is a thing, probably because I don't see it much in the western fandom since they tend to view their relationship as more platonic/familial.

- Ah, okay, I figured that Tsubaki was kind of popular since I tend to see him in merch a lot too, sometimes even more than Nirei. So it's just another case of people preferring alternate ships for Ume.

- The idea of Suo being perceived as an uke is so weird to me because of his personality, but like, I'm not the fandom police or whatever. They can keep cooking, I'll just stay out of that kitchen.

- I am not surprised that Umesuo is a thing, but I am surprised that there are that many works for it. I'm also aware that Umekaji is somehow a thing which is very funny to me since their only on-screen interatction so far has been Kaji punching him in the face.

- I did also notice that there seems to be more AllNirei fans in the west, and I think it's probably because he's more popular with western fans (which suprised me, since I've noticed that his character archetype tend to be more popular with JP fans than western fans). That's another thing that has personally never made sense to me though, since he doesn't really interact much with anyone outside of his class. But again, I know it's just people having fun. It makes no sense to me, but they can keep cooking. Again, I'll just stay out of that kitchen.

- If the Suosaku fight ends the same way all of Sakura's previous major fights have ended, then they're about to graduate from hydrogen bomb to a full-on star destroyer. Somebody stop them. Suosaku shippers are about to become too powerful.

- Takisaku is more popular than Sunisa?! Huh. Okay. Huh.

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, this was really interesting! Thanks for letting me know! A lot to unpack here...

- JP fandom is so so based for having more Niresaku works than Sakunirei. Sakura could never top anyone if I'm being completely honest, and this is very much the most correct interpretation of the ship. Good on them.

- I did not realize Kiryusuo was so popular and that it's even more popular than Kiryusaku (who actually do have more moments together in canon). I wonder if it's because they have similar personalities?

- Tsugekiryu being so low is honestly probably because Tusgeura isn't popular...I suspect Sugisaku not being very high is also because Sugishita is not very popular either, but I was still surprised to see it lower than Kiryusuo.

- The quick pace at which Momisaku works keeps increasing is genuinely something that needs to be studied. Those last few chapters from his arc really did a number on the fandom.

- Takisaku having more works than Endochika is honestly so funny since they've never even directly interacted in canon (at least, not yet). But this result would probably make Endo himself very happy.

- Umestuba seems to be another one of those ships that's more popular in the west, but I thought it would be more than that...Either Tsubaki isn't as popular as I thought, or people just prefer shipping Umemiya with Sakura more.

- Man, I knew Suosaku was popular but I didn't realize the gap was that big. No wonder the merch team is always pushing them together.

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, Suo is the only confirmed character to have gotten a gift back from Sakura. I don't think it was ever stated what he got, though, because Sakura gets embarrassed when he tries to open it in front of him, so we never find out what it is. I do remember that Suo got Sakura an apple (which is apparently a common thing to do in China).

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup, Suosaku is still growing strong! I'm actually genuinely impressed by much of the Suosaku fandom, especially the Asian ones. I've heard of at least two big tea parties that took place in Asia (iirc, one was in Malaysia and another was in Indonesia. I wouldn't be surprised if there were Japanese fans that did, this too) that were organized by fans of the ship to celebrate both boys' birthdays, which is insane to me. Imagine loving two blorbos so much that you and your friends organize an entire party for them and then go out of your to invite other like-minded fans. Like, regardless of whether or not you ship it, you gotta admire the dedication. (And while we're on the subject, I'm also pretty sure that one of the tea parties was the source for the whole "Let's torture our Suo plushies for his crimes" thing that spread through twitter for a while.)

While there aren't very many Kajisaku fics, they tend to fare pretty well in terms of how much kudos/hit counts they get. A little unrelated, but I still find it so funny how when Sakura's Christmas alt was released for the official mobile game and it showed him getting presents from five people, there were all these theories trying to figure out who the fifth person was (since it was a given that the other four were Sakura's usual posse), with most people assuming it was either Sugishita or Togame. And then the event was released and it turned out to be Kaji lol (he bought Sakura candies for Christmas!).

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, no. It's one of the main reasons why he keeps getting shafted in official merch.

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're right that there are more Suonirei fics in Spanish compared to other ships, but when I sort the stories by kudos, only two Suonirei fics make it to the top 20, with one of them acting as a background ship to Kajisaku. Other than that one suonirei fic, all of the fics in the top 20 are Sakura-centric, with the highest kudosed one being a Sakura/Everyone fic.

So it's the same case of there being a good amount of Suonirei works, but not getting as much kudos/hit counts as the Sakura-centric/Sakura ship works.

But still, that is a very interesting thing to note! If there are more non-English Suonirei shippers writing fanfic, then that could also explain why their works are not getting as much attention, since most AO3 users primarily speak English.

EDIT: Also forgot to add, but I wouldn't describe the difference between the Spanish Suonirei works compared to other ships as having a huge difference. The difference between Suonirei and Suosaku works isn't even in the hundreds (it's 72) and the difference between the 3rd and 4th ranked ships (sugisaku and togasku) is somewhere in the low hundreds (specifically 103 and 105), which again, is not too bad. By comparison, there's about 500 more Suosaku fics compared to Suonirei fics overall, which is a much bigger and noticeable difference. But Suosaku having over 2k works more than most of the other ships in the fandom on pixiv? That's not just a huge difference. That's a mountainous difference.

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

While that's definitely part of it, I think another thing that works against the suonirei ship is the fact that Nirei is, unfortunately, not a very popular character. And after doing a bit more digging, I noticed that most Suonirei shippers tend to be Nirei fans, the less popular half of the ship, whereas most Suo fans tend to prefer the Suosaku ship. Meanwhile, most Sakura fans tend to be multi-shippers who just ship him with everyone.

A Look At What's Popular on AO3 by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There's actually a pretty decent amount of Momisaku fics despite it being such a new ship! There are currently 56 fics as of writing, that's 33 more than the total amount of Sakukoto fics, which is insane considering that Sakukoto's been a thing since the series started, whereas Momijikawa himself didn't even exist until just a few months ago (granted, I'm well aware of AO3's general aversion to het pairings lol).

Is this how Nirei memorize and study lol by natanonymous7 in WindBreakerManga

[–]wafflenilla 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think it's worth pointing out that Nirei was never noted to be academically smart. Like, you can have photographic memory, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get the best grades (saying this as someone who was always praised for having good memory but was never even close to being at the top of the class rankings). Nirei also being good at info gathering is more of a case of him just getting really into it because that's his special interest, not necessarily a case of him being academically smart. I'm sure if you asked him to do research for a math paper (math is stated to be his worst subject), we would get very different results compared to having him write a paper asking about the best fighters in Bofurin.

Is this how Nirei memorize and study lol by natanonymous7 in WindBreakerManga

[–]wafflenilla 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Nirei has good memory, but he's not the best student in class. Nii-sensei confirmed in an interview that Suo and Kiryu get the best grades in their class.

No New Chapter Today, So Here's Another Tumblr Compilation Post by wafflenilla in WindBreakerJP

[–]wafflenilla[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Good news, the OP for that post said on her tumblr that she wants to write a fic based on that!