This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/RX8Racer556 on 2024-07-17 18:55:19+00:00.
Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! feat. Hatsune Miku (or Project Sekai for short) is a rhythm/gacha game developed by Colorful Palette and published by Sega. To avoid confusion with American video game publisher Sekai Project, the game is known as Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! outside Japan.
Chances are, you've probably heard of Hatsune Miku, so I won't be going into Miku herself or her developers Crypton Future Media as she isn't important to this story.
Now, even though Hatsune Miku is right there in the title, in practice the game is actually centered on five different music groups made up of 20 original characters made for Project Sekai. After all, it would be pretty difficult to push a gacha game with only Miku and the other five Crypton Vocaloids (branded as 'Virtual Singers' to sidestep Yamaha's copyright on the Vocaloid name).
In game, each of these groups have their own 'SEKAI', another world separate from the real world and accessed through their smartphones by playing an "Untitled" song on their phones. Each of the groups use their SEKAI to compose music, practice dances or just relax and chat with the Virtual Singers and each other.
With that, let's introduce the two Project Sekai characters that are central to this story.
"The leading star will only be me!"
Akito Shinonome is a member of Vivid BAD SQUAD (aka Vivibasu or VBS), a group of street performers seeking to surpass a legendary music event called 'RAD WEEKEND'. While he seems pleasant and polite at first glance, he drops this facade and reveals his actual gruff personality when around people he is familiar with.
”I am the Jackpot Sad Girl, still unable to comprehend each other”
Mafuyu Asahina aka 'Yuki' is a member of Nightcord at 25:00 (aka Niigo or N25), a group of anonymous musicians and artists that gather online at the titular hour to work on music and the accompanying artwork and music videos. At school, Mafuyu is the brilliant honour student that excels in academics and sports while being kind and helpful to everyone. But as the above song line implies, this too is just a facade. Pressured by her mother's expectations that she dedicate herself to studying in order to become a doctor, Mafuyu has lost her sense of taste and identity, and struggles with displaying her true emotions or figuring out what she likes or dislikes. This video sums up her two sides (and dragged me down the ProSeka rabbit hole.
Akito and Mafuyu also have one degree of separation through two of Mafuyu's fellow Nightcord members: Akito's elder sister Ena aka 'Enanan' and Akito's schoolmate Mizuki aka 'Amia'.
So, we have a couple of two-faced people that also happen to be separated by one degree of separation. It was probably inevitable that someone would ship these two together.
The Fanfic and the Breaking Point
Now, the original fanfic that started all this was deleted eons ago, so I can't tell you when it was first posted. Not that it matters, because someone else mirrored it on Twitter in June 2021.
Reddit mirror here for those not wishing to use Twitter/X
For those unable to stomach bad fanfiction, this fic's pacing is faster than a bullet train and the characterisation is either really overexaggerated and/or out of character. This feels like elementary/primary schoolwork at best. And I was skimming over the whole thing while cringing all the way.
As far as I can tell without dredging through Twitter or Discord, this Twitter post didn't make a splash initially. It would take over a year for things to really kick off. But when it did? Oh boy....
The breaking point seemed to be the Japanese server's announcement of the game’s 2nd anniversary Cheerful Carnival (team vs team) event 'This Festival of Twilight Colours' on 23 Sep 2022. The reason for this was that the accompanying gacha for this event included new limited cards for both Mafuyu and Akito, and because Mafuyu is facing left in her card artwork whereas Akito was facing right, you could set up their card artworks to face each other.
All it took was for someone to remember the fanfic, and all hell broke loose.
”Generally speaking, everyone's C-R-A-Z-Y”
Memes, memes everywhere. Here are a few highlights:
A certain infamous 4-panel comic
And it wasn’t just limited to Reddit. YouTube videos of in-game conversations involving Akito and Mafuyu racked up comments either referencing and/or joking about the fanfic. Even a later event story involving Mafuyu staying over at Ena and Akito’s house had a few comments on the fanfic too.
General reactions could be divided into four camps:
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Not knowing what was going on and asking for context
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Laughing and crying as hilarity ensued
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Hilariously dramatic ”NOOOOOOOOO!”
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Being sick and tired of the meme being overused to hell and back
Understandably, those in camp 4 were really, really annoyed at the explosion in Akito/Mafuyu memes.
But it would end eventually. The meme eventually died down around early 2023. After all, there are only so many ways to say or meme ‘Come here, Mafuyu-chan’.
And I made a crappy custom profile as a memento of the meme for the lolz XD
THE END