Why I love Hina Hikawa. An Essay.

No, I’ll actually try to keep this short and sweet. I could wax poetic about my best girls forever but honestly that takes forever and I just wanna show some love already. So~ my best girl! My list tends to shuffle around for a variety of reasons but my first and long-standing best girl is the lovely mint chocolate chip colored sweetie: Hina Hikawa!

Hina Hina Hina, my lovely autistic child.

And no. I don’t mean that as an insult. Bare with me! When I was little, I was…strange, to say the least. I didn’t really speak or react too much. I just wanted to be alone with a book that probably should have been for kids triple my age. I couldn’t handle a lot of stimuli, couldn’t read people properly. It was a mess. Autism was (and mostly still is) uncharted territory, so when I was smacked with the label, no one around knew what to do. Life for awhile was constant classes in social etiquette, devouring so many new things, trying this whole “fitting in” thing, failing and getting back up in time to pretend to do it all again the “right” way with the kids my age.

Hina to me is that side of me that I tried to leave behind all those years ago. The me that I tried to forget about for awhile, but still is a big part of me: a person who doesn’t quite understands social cues even after “training” but finds people fascinating, the person who picks up new hobbies, accidentally turns into a savant and then becoming bored by a lot of them. I could go on but I think you get the point. When I first started reading Hina’s interactions I immediately saw myself, and I really wanted to hate her like the other players I knew about…but I immediately fell in love. It gave me a little bubble of happiness to see someone like I was (although I doubt it’ll be explicitly said), one of the many MANY forms of Autism.

Especially her interactions with Aya (who is up there as the best girl too) in the main Pastel Palettes story! It took me back to some- looking back on it- cringey conversations with “normal” or “neurotypical” people. Especially when I finally got the hang of just talking to people, but not the hang of understanding what not to say to do things like: cheer people up. Usually, characters that seem to be autistic coded (think like Sheldon from Big Bang theory, Newt Scamander from the Fantastic beast, etc.) can come across as more abrasive than they really mean to, more oddballs who just refuse to conform as opposed to people who are just hardwired differently. But Hina hits this sweet spot of having “quirks” but still being shown to have a good heart. She loves her band, and doesn’t want to see it fall apart! Hina admires Aya for her combat-ness (is that a word? I can’t think of another word for her), Chisato for her attitude, Maya for her intelligence and Eve…well I still don’t get Eve but Hina and I love her too!

I love that we share a serious sweet tooth, and hate flavorless foods! And tofu! Like I said, I know it’s not Canon, but I like that that part of autism is shown: the texture/flavor thing. Usually, people with autism are extremely sensitive to such things and I just don’t see that used in character that much. I might be reading way too much into these things but autistic girls are usually left to the wayside, and seeing even little traits like having texture issues or even the Boppity thing and such just makes my little heart sing! I know it’s a weirdly translated onomatopoeia, but I know so many autistic friends that do things like that~ I remember when I was younger I would talk just like Hina! I might do it now, but if I do, I have no flipping idea. Hehe~ I don’t even know if this is coherent anymore~ but long story short: I love this babe so much! My first 4-star, speaker of some of my favorite lines, wearer of some of my fav outfits…I think Hina will always hold a special space in my heart, even if I become a traitor and switch around my list.

EDIT: Also freaking~look at her cute face and tell me to MY face that this little blueberry isn't cute af? I want more cards of her!

-Also: She supports her sister no matter what?!?? Like, she watches all of Roselia's proformances~ in disguise! Which we all know is Hina in sunglasses and a sick hat.

I never posted anything here, but the Change My Mind Challenge ended up encouraging me to state my opinion about my favorite character: Chisato Shirasagi

Yes, the character who usually divides fandom into two groups, on one side are the people who hate her and on the other those who love her

The first time I entered the game was when the Searching Stars event had been released on JP, I obviously do not know Japanese, but my experience in SIF JP made it easier to adapt

During the loading screen I was analyzing the bands and the characters, Pastel*Palettes and Roselia were the bands that most caught my attention, and analyzing the characters of these two bands Chisato ended up calling my attention, I do not know why, but I I wanted to know more about her.

And by chance, my first 3* was Initial Chisato, at the time I was already thinking "It's a sign!" and I tried to find out more about her, and during the time I played she was my best girl

Unfortunately, I stopped playing shortly after, my cell phone had broken

This year, when I launched WW, I happened to be playing Chisato's birthday again, and I had the same impression as before ... "It's a sign"

She's still my best girl to date and when I played JP a little, she surprised me with two 4* of her coming home

I love her so much, and it's like she loves me back too.

The strange thing is that I do not even think of her, my personality would be a mixture of Aya and Rinko (strange, I know, but it's true), like I said, I do not know why, but I chose her ... I love all the characters in the game, but it's as if Chisato was in the first place and all the others in second place

(I'm sorry for the bad English, I use Google Translate lol)

I don't know why I waited this much to do the Change My mind Challenge if I love to write about my favourite things, but now I decided tat I should stop waiting and do my post now.

Why do I love my best girl?

Some of you might already know who my best girl is, since I did mention it in some posts and it also says it in my profile, but the girl who managed to catch my atention is Tae Hanazono. It was actually a tough decision. I had a really hard time choosing my best girl. Just by looks, Eve and Kanon where the ones to catch my atention the most. After seeing a bit more from the characters, Tomoe had my atention, since I liked her cool big sister personality, and she also shares birthday with me, so that made her stand out. But someone who also, surprisingly, caught my atention was Rimi. I usually am never a fan of shy characters, but something about Rimi felt different for me, and when I got her 4* in my first ever gacha,she started to grow more on me. Saaya was also someone who grabbed my attention when I watched the anime, since her development there was great, and everything became just harder. There were too many good characters. But one day, out of nowhere, while listening to Hanazono Denki guitar!!!, I started to think about O-Tae's character. I like her design, but at first it made her look like the usual long dark haired pretty girl that is always serious, and I always grow tired of those kind of characters, but then I realized just how wrong I was. She is anything but that, she is a big dork and a weirdo who isn't afraid to say things to others, without thinking about the consecuences before, and she always has her head on the clouds. She also loves rabbits a lot. After realizing all of that, I found out that she is a lot like me. I also give this serious image to other people when they first see me, but if they make me open up more, they find out that I actually am really dorky and kind of a weirdo, who's always on the clouds, like O-Tae is. I also really like rabbits, and have one as a pet. I sometimes say things without thinking too, but not much because I sometimes lack the confidence to do so. After realizing all of that, she instantlly became my best girl because of how much I could identifiy myself with her.

That is the main reason as to why I love O-Tae so much, but this doesn't end here. I love O-Tae for much more than just that:

• She's without a doubt the funniest character in all of the game. Everytime she says something random, she puts a smirk in my face and makes me laugh. Without her, Bandori and especially PoPiPa, would't be the same. She's the soul of PoPiPa and the character that always lights up the mood. During the 3 first episodes of the anime, O-Tae has so little screen time, she doesn't even appear for a full minute during the three episodes, and the number of lines she has is so short, that even side characters get more lines than her. She doesn't even appear once during the second episode if i'm not wrong. Those 3 episodes feel really empty, but after the 4th episode, everything becomes much better, since she's finally there.

• Her interactions with her fellow bandmates are some of my favourites because they always end up in a weird way. Sometimes she completely missunderstands something, but in a completely unexpected way like when Arisa asks her to meet with her after school in the Runaway Rabbits event story. Other times she gets asked something and she brings up something else out of nowhere for no reason, like in this convo with Rimi. And some other times she just misses the point of what they tell her.

• I've talked about how dorky she is, but sometimes she can actually be reliable and says useful things, like in the Present Song event story, when she asks Rimi who did she want to make happy with her song, even if she doesn't even realize that she said something right. Another one of these cases is during the CiRCLING Festival event story, when she reasures Kasumi after she saw their leaflet thrown away.

• She's got one of my favourite designs in the game, and her cards are all beautiful. Some of my favourite cards would be this one, this other one, or this one. But my personal favourites are: nº3 nº2 and nº1

All of these reasons, and much much more of them, are why I love O-Tae Hanazono with all my heart. I could keep talking over and over about why I love her, but I'm pretty sure my point has been made with this, and I hope I could have changed your minds about O-Tae.

Today I'll talk about my best girl, Lisa! I also have best girl #2, #3, #4, and #5 for each of the bands. Aya #2, Saya #3, Moca #4, and Misaki #5. But I'm only going to talk about Lisa!

Originally, I didn't have a favourite from Roselia. It just wasn't the best band in my opinion. Then I read the band story and I fell in love! I love every girl from Roselia, but Lisa's my favourite, with Ako at a close second. Lisa is a good friend and always helps Yukina. She doesn't give up and she wants to help Yukina in every way possible. She's the best friend you could ever have, always staying at your side.

Also her character design is 👌I just love it! She's so cute and I love her hair!

I'm not really good at describing why I love people or things, but I hope that I got my message across!

I love Lisa!

I wasn't going to actually do this but I had free time so I was like 'why not?'. So for the Change My Mind Challenge I'm gonna talk about Aya Maruyama.

Before the game came out in en I did research on the game and its characters (only their names so I wouldn't spoil myself) so I'd know what I was getting into. The first time I saw Aya was during this time and I thought she'd be one of those super happy go lucky leaders who could only show happiness and was friends with everyone.

So queue to me actually getting the game and playing it. When the loading screen came up and I read Aya's description it blew my mind. She was extremely relatable to me just from reading it especially where it says,

"Aya admires idols and entered the entertainment industry as a probationary idol in the hopes of becoming one; however, she is easily nervous and cries easily when things go wrong and she's overwhelmed by her emotions. She has stage fright and so she has weak improvisation, so she has yet to achieve a breakthrough."

Now by this point she still wasn't my favorite but she was very high up in my list of characters I might like. So I started getting band stories after about 30 minutes of playing and at some moment of time I got to the PasuPare one. The story itself was amazing but the cherry on top was getting to see the personalities of the girls and how they started off.

Seeing how Aya acted was what really made me love her along with her design. Aya has a huge love for idols and wanted to be one for a long time so she did training. When she finally did get to be in a idol group, she had to fake it and she hated it. Not only that but she also had her fears holding her back but even so she fought against those fears not only for herself but for her band's success.

Plus Aya's design (to me) could be a play on how most times the leader (who usually has pink as their main color {ex.Honoka from LL!}) in idol/overall groups tend to be confident, outgoing, overall happy go lucky, and not have many flaws. But when you see her real personality you learn that she isn't any of those things. She's clumsy, has stage fright, and gets overwhelmed easily but even so tries her hardest to be good idol for her friends and herself.

Basically Aya has many flaws that gets in the way of her wish to be a idol but tries her hardest to get past them to help others and is an amazing character past her looks.

Kaoru Seta is the best girl and you can’t change my mind!

-Incredibly sappy post warning-

When I first downloaded Bandori, it was when the game had just come out on EN. I knew nothing about the series, but one of my friends told me about it. So, I started playing. I loved Rimi, I loved Rinko. I loved Arisa and loved O-Tae. Then, another band was introduced. It was called Hello, Happy World! I loved all of them. Kanon was adorable and reminded me of myself. Kokoro and Hagami were so happy and positive, like I wish that I could be. Misaki was adorable and bitter, and reminded me of one of my closest friends. Then, I saw Kaoru Seta.

I never understood the people who would spend 1,000 of dollars on one piece of merch until I saw her. She was flirty and sweet, but never a heartbreaker. I felt myself actually blush when she spoke, especially when she called someone kitten. Yes, really. I was /blushing/. I had never liked that nickname until I met her. Kaoru was also, surprisingly, not the smartest. Her stupidity was hilarious and I found myself laughing and smiling whenever she was onscreen. I pronounced us married the very minute I saw her.

This year was the year that I realized I was a lesbian. I had identified as bi for years and it just never felt right. But this year, I finally came to terms with the fact that I was a lesbian. Karou Seta is an unapologetic lesbian. I’ve never had a character that was so outspoken and proud of her own sexuality affect me so much. I’m a lesbian, and so is Kaoru. That’s okay. It took me a long time to realize it, but that’s okay.

I’m currently building a shrine and an ita bag to Kaoru. It’s going to take a long time because I can’t find a lot of it. I currently have over 5000 gems saved up for the first limited box in EN, just because Kaoru makes a cameo in it. She’s my best girl, and I won’t rest until I have every card that has even a hint of her in it.

Kaoru, I love you.

She’s best girl and you can’t change my mind.

kaoru seta is a lesbian

Change My Mind Challenge

[WARNING : MY POST OF CHANGE MY MIND CHALLENGE CONTAINS SPOILER! FOR THOSE WHO DON'T PLAY JP VERSION, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

My best girl is Sayo. In my opinion she is the most interesting character to be explored in Bandori because her background and......her conflicted relationship with Hina.

This is my list of reasons why Sayo is my best girl :

• She has feminine voice (not too cute, which is my favorite type of voice). She is one of the most polite character I think (I prefer characters who is polite). Plus, she looks very graceful
• Her hardworking personality is her positive trait, though she is known as strict person.
• From the start of story, she is skilled at guitar, made Yukina got impressed with her guitar play. (although in her opinion Hina is better. But don't worry, Sayo! For me, you're the best!)
• Her personality is very unique (known for her bitter personality), considering Bandori (and idol theme game) have a lot of cheerful/sweet/friendly characters and if there's any not-too-friendly character, it's just calmer or cooler.
• Sayo's problem is relatable in real life (a lot of people have said this). I get the similar problem as her, I find myself being inspiration to my closest friends only to have them outshine me in things we're into together. At the same time I'm envious but I also can't truly hate them (not even I can distant myself like Sayo did to Hina)
• In Roselia story she frequently was in conflict with Ako regarding "admiration-to-your-older-sister". However, she willingly helped Ako to study in one conversation, implying she care about her.
• [MINOR SPOILER] I love how the staff explored her story and her relationship with Hina, from beginning until the resolution (Umbrella in The Autumn Rain). Even in 3* Sayo 's first story (from Umbrella in The Autumn Rain) told the reason why she dislikes carrot.
• [MAJOR SPOILER] And the notable part is................about her relationship with Hina, which became the major point of her story. We know that Sayo has been envious with Hina for long time. However, as a sister, obviously, she still care about Hina. The first development occured in Tanabata event, when she wished to spend more time with Hina. And yes, she make it herself. (implied in Umbrella in the Autumn Rain event)
• [MAJOR SPOILER] And the best point is.............HER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Sayo realized that Hina always be there for her, even though she often became mean to her. In this moment, she decided to express her frustation to Hina, leading to her resolution. Later, Sayo became warmer and nicer. The notable example is when she decided to learn how to bake cookies in order to make cheer Roselia like Lisa usually do (Mismatched!? Silly Sweets Classroom Event Start! event). tl;dr : She goes from "Angry girl who quit herself from her band after performing" to "Nice girl who bakes cookies to cheer you up".
• Along with Hina, she actually likes junk food, especially french fries (yes, who doesn't?)
• I remembered in one time she said that she doesn't really care about appearance, which is her similarity to me.
• Bonus : She actually likes animals (maybe dogs)

Her picture is from card of the new Roselia event. I edited it with template from canva

The Change My Mind Challenge sounds like a good excuse for me to gush about Tsugumi, so here I am.

When I first started the game, Tsugu was, design-wise, one of my lowest ranking girls. I prefer characters with flashier designs, like Hina, for example. But after just a few days, Tsugu became my best girl. Part of the reason is her voice. For me, a character’s voice plays a huge factor in whether I like them or not. They could have everything I’ve ever wanted in design and personality, but if I don’t like their voice, I kinda just back away slowly. With Tsugu, her voice is just so sweet and adorable, and it always lifts my mood to listen to her speak.

Of course, I fell in love with her personality too. She’s an ordinary girl who cares a lot about her friends and just wants to do her very best. She’s aware that she doesn’t stand out as much, and that she isn’t as musically-inclined as the rest of Afterglow. She isn’t ashamed of this fact though, and instead she uses it as a motivation to work hard to support her friends. I find that to be really inspirational. A lot of the times, I feel like I’m not up to par with the people around me (college is stressful guys otz) and it’s easy for me to just go “whatever” and mope until I feel better. But Tsugumi shows that it’s okay not to be as good as other people sometimes and to just be yourself. And it’s this trait of hers that allows her to accept other people for who they are, flaws and all, and to see the best in them. Acceptance of both yourself and other people is easier said than done, but Tsugumi is able to do it, and it makes me love and admire her so much for it.

Listen, even if I submit it very close to the deadline, I still want to participate in the Change My Mind Challenge, because it sounds fun and I want more people to appreciate my favorite bean, Ako! She deserves way more attention than she gets and I hope I can Change your mind fingerguns

First she didn't quite catch my eye at all. I thought she was just "one of these chuuni characters" and kind of brushed her off... boy that was a big mistake. She may seem like a typical chuuni, but she actually just uses words that, according to the internet and herself, sound cool. This sounds like something I would've done when I was around her age, honestly. Just this trying to become "popular" or in her case "cool" is, for me at least, very relatable, since, when you're a kid, you want to be liked by everyone, so you look up whatever is popular (or should I say... cool?) to make yourself "be more cool and interesting" just like the ones you admire.

In Ako's case the ones she admires the most are Yukina, the lead vocalist of Roselia, and Tomoe, her big sister. There is something really pure about her idolizing them, despite her idolizing them for slightly varying reasons. Tomoe she idolizes because she's her big sister, always helping her out with things in a mature way, while in Yukina's case she idolizes her because of her i-need-to-get-to-the-top personality, even calling her cool, when she rejected her from joining Roselia for being too childish. Again, I feel like this is very relatable. We all have someone we idolize, may that be one of your family members, a member of a famous group or someone else, there is always someone we strive to be like, yet we know we can't be exactly like them. Even Ako knows she can't be exactly like her big sister, calling herself the second best drummer after her sister, yet she still does her best to be like her, learning how to play the drums and attempting to join a band just because she inspired her to do so.

But Ako wasn't only inspired to join, she also got someone else to join Roselia, Rinko! They've been gaming buddies for a while and without Ako, Rinko probably wouldn't have that many friends because of her shyness. After showing Rinko Yukina's powerful voice and how much fun she's been having after joining Roselia, she takes all of her courage and asks Ako if she can join as a Keyboardist, which Roselia had been looking for at that time. If I had a friend like Ako, I would also try my best to support her in any way possible, making me step out of my comfort zone like with Rinko's case, which isn't a bad thing of course. I have a hard time socializing, so having someone like that, someone pushing me out of that comfort zone, be it directly or indirectly, would be a bliss to me, since I actually want to be around people, yet don't know how to approach anyone. She was actually the reason I got a haircut, cutting off 20cm worth of hair, to start anew, to be like that outgoing little girl with pigtails I admire for her determination and outgoing personality and, despite that plan failing miserably, I can't say I didn't try. Thank you Ako for giving me the courage to try to change myself.

Okay, since I'm running out of time now, I'll just name a few points (sorta) out of order ^^;

• I really love her design in general. The purple hair and especially the red eyes emphasize her chuuni-like aura and how can you not love her twindrills.
• She has a better fashion sense than me great fashion sense! Even though her outfits are quite flashy, they still look cool and I'm sure that's the look she goes for! (Ako give me tips please)
• Her favorite foods are potato chips and jelly beans and, honestly, I relate. I too would call the police if I lost my bag of jelly beans.

Sorry, I'm not that good at writing, but I did my best anyway!! and I also hope nothing came off as insulting;;

This is gonna be a bit of a story so get comfy with your choco cornets.

I didn’t get into Bandori until the English release of the game. A couple of months before the game was released, I was looking through all of the character profiles, and trying to decide on a best girl.

At that point, Ran caught my eye. She seemed like a strong, fierce, yet awkward girl who really cared about her friends. I liked her character a lot, and I still do! But today, we’re not here to talk about Ran, but another girl who stole my heart.

So anyway, the night before the English release, I decided that I would reroll until I got a 4*, since I hear that it would help my teams a lot in the earlier events. At that point though, only the Poppin’ Party girls had 4*s. I hopped into the shower that night, hoping to decide who was my best Popipa girl once and for all since I had been trying to decide for the past week or so. So I went through them all one by one.

Kasumi- a genki leader. I generally have a soft spot of genki leaders. Arisa- a Tsundere. I liked the way she spoke, because it sounded a lot harsher than a lot of female tsunderes. Rimi- she wants to stand on her own two feet. She’s shy, but she wants to change that about herself, which I really liked. Tae- she seemed pretty chill, and she likes bunnies.

And then there was Saya.

I had never really considered Saya before that point. In fact, she was the one from Popipa that stood out to me the least. She had a nice design, but she kinda just seemed like a typical mom friend. She was just…there. She was neutral (like she is to a lot of people). There’s not a whole lot to dislike about her.

But anyway, I took a closer look at Saya, read up on her character a bit. Her family owns a bakery? Baked goods a.k.a. my favourite type of food in the world? I think she went a bit further up my list. She seems really nice and I like her design, so I’ll reroll for her, I thought.

On my 7th or 8th reroll account, I got her!! I got her 4*!! I was so happy I was screaming.

The first thing I learned from her card was that she likes scrunchies! Honestly, I thought that was really cute, and it was something that (kind of) came up in the anime when she had matching scrunchies with her old bandmates. Though they didn't explicitly say it, I thought it added a nice touch, and I'm really glad they added it. I thought that the fact that she wanted matching scrunchies with the rest of Popipa was really sweet as well!

The more I got into the stories, the more I learned of her character, the more I grew to like her, and she eventually ended up becoming my best girl. Which is why I find the name of this contest so ironic; Saya Yamabuki literally changed my mind.

I felt like Saya was the complete opposite of me; she cared about the people around her, she was supportive, and she was friendly. She’s mature, but she can still be silly at times. The fact that she can manage a band on top of helping out at her family’s bakery and looking after her siblings is something I really admire about her. My favourite characters have at least one aspect that I really relate to; Saya was was different. She was someone I look up to, and she’s someone I want to be like. She’s someone I’d want to be friends with, since I’ve felt like I’ve always had to be the ‘mom friend’ in my group of friends. I’ve always what it would be like if I had a mom friend. Not too long ago I started watching the anime, and I’ve gotten up to a couple of episodes after Saya’s joined Popipa.

At that point I realised maybe Saya wasn’t the complete opposite of me. Saya kept a lot of her feelings to herself. She tried to do her best to help the people around her, and to make sure that she wasn’t causing anyone problems, so she’ll decide things on her own. That’s why she pushed Kasumi away, even if she wanted to join. That’s something I really relate to a lot. I want to make sure I’m not bothering anyone most of the time, I make a lot of decisions without consulting anyone because of that. That only grew to make me love her more though, because I understood what she was going through.

I almost cried a couple of times during her arc. When Saya finally joined Popipa, when she finally decided to do something for herself, rather than for the people around her, I was almost in tears. She grew so much as a character, and I think I grew to love her more than I already do.

I made a few edits for her birthday, which I've posted on here and on twitter! I also wrote a little letter to her on my twitter post ♡

To sum it up, Saya Yamabuki is a sweet, supportive girl who deserves all the happiness in the world. I hope this mini-essay is enough to raise you’re opinion of her, even if it’s a little bit. Thanks for reading! Since you’ve made it this far, here’s a choco cornet from Yamabuki Bakery ♡