Characters / Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! - Vivid BAD SQUAD

Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! Characters
Main Units: Leo/Need | More More Jump! | Vivid Bad Squad | Wonderlands X Showtime | Nightcord at 25:00 | Virtual Singers
SEKAI: School | Stage | Street | Wonderland | Empty | Seven Deadly Sins

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A street music-style group that was formed to surpass the talent of the legendary musical show "RAD WEEKEND", once the cornerstone of An's father's career during times past. Initially comprised of two competing groups, "Vivids", led by An Shiraishi and her new partner Kohane Azusawa, and "BAD DOGS", led by Akito Shinonome and his partner Toya Aoyagi, their experiences with the SEKAI lead the four to join together as one and reach a new level of musical talent.

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General

• The Ace: An, Akito, and Toya are described as talented street musicians that come from different backgrounds and have gained a reputation for it. After her character development, Kohane joins them in this as well.
• Ambiguously Gay: A sentiment that extends to the entire unit, as it runs on Homoerotic Subtext between the two designated same-sex pairs.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Being a street music group, the characters rap in a number of songs. Some examples include "RAD DOGS", "Wah Wah World!" (For Kohane), "YY", and "Utsuro wo Aogu".
• Cast Herd: Outside of starting with four VIRTUAL SINGERS, they were the fourth unit to have all of the Crypton VIRTUAL SINGERS appear in their associated SEKAI:
  • Miku, Kagamine Len, MEIKO, and Kagamine Rin were the SEKAI's starting VIRTUAL SINGERS. ^note Rin doesn't appear in the Vivid BAD SQUAD main story, but she was present in the SEKAI since launch.
  • KAITO debuted in the event story STRAY BAD DOG.
  • Megurine Luka first appeared in An's 2021 Birthday Live and made a proper event debut in Same Dreams, Same Colors.
• Color-Coded Characters: As a whole, the unit is associated with the color hot pink.
  • Kohane: Ruby Pink
  • An: Turquoise Blue
  • Akito: Amber Orange
  • Toya: Sapphire Blue
• Color Motif:
  • The unit has a colorful motif outside of each character and their assigned color, and it shows in their cards, music jackets, and MV's, which will often include a variety of different colors in them.
  • The group is also associated with light blue and hot pink, both of which appear in the group's logo and were often used as neon lighting effects in some of Vivid BAD SQUAD's early trained illustrations. This has calmed as the group's illustrations have begun to branch out into more diverse themes from Same Dreams, Same Colors onwards.
  • The character's last names all connect to colors as well:
    • Kohane Azusawa: Reddish-Brown
    • An Shiraishi: White
    • Akito Shinonome: Salmon
    • Toya Aoyagi: Blue
• Famed In-Story: Akito and Toya built up a reputation as BAD DOGS prior to the group's unit story, while An was well-known for being a popular singer on Vivid Street, as well as for being the daughter of Ken Shiraishi, a famous street musician. By The Vivid Old Tale, Vivid BAD SQUAD as a whole has gained a reputation in the street music community.
• Flower Motifs: They're each depicted with flowers in their 2022 birthday cards.
  • Kohane: Persian Buttercups and Iceland Poppies
  • An: Coreopsis and Larkspurs
  • Akito: Elatior Begonias and Lemon Flowers
  • Toya: Buttercups, Pansies, and Yuzu's Flowers
• Foil: Vivids and BAD DOGS have meaningful differences regarding their partnerships.
  • BAD DOGS come from more unhealthy family dynamics and backgrounds compared to the Vivids, who appear to come from loving and involved households.
  • All four members inherited talent from their fathers. However, while Vivids admire their fathers and want to follow in their footsteps, BAD DOGS are either indifferent toward or strayed from the paths their fathers set in order to become street musicians instead.
  • BAD DOGS had been a group for two years prior to the unit story while Vivids formed during the unit story.
  • BAD DOGS were slower and had a tougher path to building their reputation. This is due to Akito needing a bit of time to overcome his lack of natural talent after the BAD DOGS was formed, while An already had a solid reputation, connections, and experience before Vivids was formed.
  • An and Akito both being designated leaders of their pairs and foils for each other results in differences with Vivids and BAD DOGS, respectively. The same can be said for Kohane and Toya who take on more passive roles in their respective units while also being foils to each other.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Each member of the group fits a temperament.
  • An is cheerful and extroverted (Sanguine).
  • Akito is a short-tempered pseudo-leader (Choleric).
  • Toya is introverted and empathetic (Melancholic).
  • Kohane is kind, sensitive, and shy (Phlegmatic).
• Free-Range Children: "The unit". They are able to do what they want, such as performing at live houses late at night or going on camping trips alone in the woods a long way from home, without much pushback from their parents. This is justified given the nature of the parents in the story; An is the daughter of a laidback street musician, Akito's family is seemingly apathetic to whatever he does and focus more on his sister, and Toya isn't allowed to do whatever he wants but chooses to ignore his family's rules. Kohane was initially the only exception, as her father feared for her safety with her hanging out at live houses, perceiving them as "dangerous", but was convinced of her safety after going to one of her performances.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Like Wonderlands x Showtime, there are two girls (Kohane and An) and two boys (Akito and Toya) in this unit. Unlike Wonderlands x Showtime, these same-sex pairs also operate as subunits, called "Vivids" and "BAD DOGS" respectively.
• Genre Roulette: Similarly to Wonderlands x Showtime and MORE MORE JUMP!, the group isn't limited to just covering songs related to the genre(s) of music they're associated with:
  • For the respective subunits Vivids and BAD DOGS, BAD DOGS tend to cover Darker and Edgier songs while Vivids covers more upbeat songs (sound-wise at least), though there is some cross-over such as "Ame to Petra" for BAD DOGS.
  • This also applies to commissioned songs that are either subunit-centric despite being full group songs, such as "RAD DOGS" for BAD DOGS and "FORWARD" for Vivids.
  • VBS Archives allows the group to cover a variety of different songs, some of which have been previously covered by other units such as "Asu no Yozora Shoukaihan" and "Dramaturgy". Both of these songs were originally covered by Leo/need. They also cover songs from the game that weren't given SEKAI versions such as "Gimme×Gimme" and "Junky Night Town Orchestra".
• Gratuitous English: Their unit event titles have a tendency to be in English. As of the game's second anniversary, they've only had one event title in Japanese, which was their very first unit event Itsuka, Senaka Awase no Ririkku wo ^note "Someday, with Our Lyrics Joined Back-to-Back.
• Image Song: Ready Steady and Beyond the way.
  • The individual members also have focus songs:
    • Kohane: Beat Eater, Flyer!, Hitsuji ga Ippiki and Realize
    • An: Forward, Awake Now, Machi and Gekokujo
    • Akito: Cinema, Gekkou, Kashika, and CRaZY
    • Toya: RAD DOGS, Mirai, Utsuro wo Aogu, and blender
  • While not performed by them, they also received two unit album songs in the form of Summer Night Song sung by Kagamine Len and ARQETYPE sung by MEIKO.
• Last-Name Basis: Vivid BAD SQUAD stands out as the only group in the main cast to have members call their teammates by their surnames. Specifically, Kohane and Toya only refer to their respective partners, An and Akito, by their given names.
• Limited Wardrobe: Aside from the SEKAI versions of the Virtual Singers, Vivid BAD SQUAD was the only main unit whose SEKAI "uniforms" and default outfits were the same, most likely due to the group's status as street performers. This was averted during the third anniversary, when it was revealed that they would have separate default and SEKAI uniforms.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Everyone on Vivid Street, including Ken, the group's mentor and An's father, failed to inform An and the rest of Vivid BAD SQUAD that Nagi died three years ago from pancreatic cancer, with her impending death around that time being the reason that RAD WEEKEND was held in the first place, due to Nagi requesting that they not tell An that she is Secretly Dying.
• Meaningful Name: The names of Vivid BAD SQUAD's two subunits have their meanings explained in the story:
  • Akito named his unit with Toya "BAD DOGS", which translates to "dumb, untrained dog". The team name has the underlying meaning of challenging dreams and provocation to the people who laugh at them for the dreams they hold. The team name is also slang for "best partner".
  • "Vivids", An and Kohane's team name. They were named for Vivid Street, which is where the pair would be most active. The team name is written in the plural as "Vivids" because An thought it was cute.
• Mirror Character: Nearly every member of the group has one or more associated VIRTUAL SINGER that reflects parts of their style or personality:
  • An: Hatsune Miku, Megurine Luka, Kagamine Rin
  • Akito: Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Len, Kagamine Rin, KAITO
  • Toya: Hatsune Miku, KAITO, Megurine Luka
  • Kohane: Hatsune Miku, MEIKO
• Mr./Mrs.Fanservice: Vivid BAD SQUAD leans into this slightly more than the other units:
  • The characters will occasionally receive SEKAI covers that play up the sex appeal of the characters, such as in "Ifuudoudou" and "PAIII.sensation", as both songs are explicitly about sex and have suggestive choreography. "BEAT EATER" also has suggestive choreography, though it can only be viewed in "live" performances of the song.
  • Some of the more fanservice unlockable costumes tend to come from the female members of this unit, such as Kohane's "BEAST HEART GIRL" costume, and An's "Lovely Vivid Devil" costume.
  • Some 2DMV's have made them look more mature compared to their in-game appearances, such as Toya and An in "Utsuro wo Aogu", where Toya also receives an open-shirt fanservice scene, and everyone in "Devil's Manner", but especially An, who wears a suit-jacket with nothing underneath.
  • The official ZOZOTOWN collaboration art◊ of Kohane had fans asking if she was still intended to be a teenager.
• Pun-Based Title: A few of their unit event titles are based on the names of the partner duos, Vivids, and BAD DOGS. For example, Vivids has Legend still Vivid and The Vivid Old Tale, while BAD DOGS has STRAY BAD DOG.
• The Rival: Vivids and BAD DOGS were initially rivals in the main story, until the final chapter where they conclude that their combined talent and drive to surpass RAD WEEKEND will make them stronger together, leading them to form Vivid BAD SQUAD. From there, it evolves into a Friendly Rivalry.
• Seasonal Baggage:
  • Each member of the group is associated with a passing season:
    • Kohane: Spring, born in spring and associated with Pink,
    • An: Summer, born in summer
    • Akito: Autumn, his name is also homonymous with autumn ("彰" and "秋" "Aki", "秋と" and "彰人", "Akito")
    • Toya: Winter, his name has the kanji for winter ("冬")
• Serious Business: While designated pairs exist in every unit, Vivid BAD SQUAD is the only unit with a story-relevant reason for these pairs, as having a partner is important to the street music subculture. Nearly every street-performing character introduced in the story either has a partner, previously had a partner, or is expected to get one.
• Shōnen Genre: According to Word of God, their stories are written to resemble a Shonen Manga storyline.
• Street Performer: They're a unit of street performers.
• To Be a Master: Their goal is to create a music act to surpass the talent of RAD WEEKEND.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: In the unit story and related side stories, it's established that Akito, An, and Toya met each other sometime in middle school after An and Akito had their experiences with RAD WEEKEND. Kohane is the "stranger" of the group, having met all three of them two years after they all became acquainted, though she and An hit it off immediately as if they'd always known each other.
• Younger Than They Look:
  • Some 2DMV's have made them look more mature compared to their in-game appearances, such as Toya and An in "Utsuro wo Aogu" and everyone except Rin in "Devil's Manner".
  • The official Zozotown collaboration illustration had fans asking whether the members of Vivid BAD SQUAD were still intended to be teenagers◊.

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Kohane Azusawa

No matter how scary it is, we'll keep on moving forward...!

^{Debut Appearance} What is this feeling...? My heart's racing...

^{Main Story Appearance (pre-haircut)}

Voiced by: Akina

Birthday: March 2 (Pisces)

School: Miyamasuzaka Girls Academy

Year: 1st (until 3rd anniversary), 2nd (present)

Hobbies: Caring for her father's pet snake

Unique Skill: Photography

Favorite Food: Peach buns, sesame dumplings

Disliked Food: Anything vinegared

Bad with: Being in public

Kohane is a bashful girl who lacks self-confidence. She found herself being bombarded with and captivated by the rap rhythm and intense tempo of the music she had never heard before.

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• All-Loving Heroine: Downplayed Trope, but Kohane barely has a mean bone in her body. Exemplified in the Vivid BAD SQUAD unit story when she still worries about Akito and Toya after their Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario even after Akito was rude and dismissive toward her throughout the majority of the story.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • She has a very close Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with An that is occasionally teased to be more than that of a friendship. Unlike An, however, the writing was initially vaguer about her feelings until Time to hang out♪, which further served to solidify Kohane as this trope.
  • Kohane's interactions with Haruka in the event Time to hang out♪ also seems to suggest she's attracted to her to some degree as she gets flustered when she teases her and flashes her a sparkling smile. This makes An jealous.
• Animal Motifs: Tends to get compared to a hamster for her small stature, round cheeks, and high voice.
• Ascended Fangirl: In April Fools Day events alternate version of Shibuya, she becomes a stage performer in Pheonix Wonderland alongside Emu in the group Happiness Squadron Sunny-Sunny☆Wonder!
• Audience Surrogate: Serves this role from the Vivid BAD SQUAD unit story onwards due to being the only character in the setting that is unfamiliar with street music and its surrounding culture. Almost everything the players learn about street music culture is either through her experiencing it for the first time or by having the other, more experienced characters explain it to her.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: She's implied to have this, as the other characters are blown away by her performance in Awakening Beat, and she's noticed by Taiga, a world-famous musician who performed at RAD WEEKEND. When describing how she sings to Kanade, Mizuki says her voice is "cute".
• Bespectacled Cutie: Originally wore glasses before switching to contacts following her makeover in the unit story. She still wears glasses when she's at home, however.
• Best Friend: With Minori, who were each other's first friends upon entering high school.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She doesn't turn into a monster when she becomes upset about something, however, post-Character Development, she becomes confident enough to voice her displeasure with An such as when she feels that An isn't taking her studies seriously.
• Character Development: Initially starts out as a shy girl who's insecure about her singing abilities and inexperience compared to the other members of her group, to the point of getting stage fright during one of her performances. By Awakening Beat, while she still retains her shyness as an inherent trait, she becomes more confident about her singing and has her growth acknowledged by everyone.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Occasionally displays signs of this toward An:
  • In Time to hang out♪, Kohane becomes jealous after witnessing how close Haruka and An are, thinking to herself that they look good together while also being upset that Haruka knows An more than she does as An's childhood friend. When Minori also declares that she's jealous of their closeness regarding Haruka's attachment to An, the two bond over their shared feelings of jealousy.
  • In Wishing for Your Happiness Upon the Blue Sky!, An and Airi devise a plan to pretend to be affectionate to trick a tense Kohane into loosening up for the photo shoot. It works and Kohane jealously tackle-hugs An away from Airi. A live cut-in dialogue between Airi and Kohane calls back to this scene, as Airi teasingly declares that she'll sit next to An, to which Kohane responds with "That can't be!"
  • Interestingly, she doesn't become jealous when An poses as a bride to Shizuku and even compliments them by saying they look like a prince and princess out of a fairytale. Later, she also says An looks "cuter" when she's spoiled by older sister figures like Shizuku.
• Cool Shades: Has these as a delinquent in Petit SEKAI.
• Curtains Match the Window: Her eyes are barely a darker shade than her pale blonde hair.
• Custom Uniform of Sexy: She's gotten a number of event outfits that bares her midsection and skin, such as her "ROOKIE SURVIVOR" and "Beast Heart Girl" outfits.
• Determinator: One of her most prominent traits as Kohane has shown a keen determination to prove herself to others and become something bigger. This is something Toya notices in her immediately, while Akito comes to respect this quality in her after her character development into a more confident singer.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Kohane's delinquent self in Petit SEKAI has completely lifeless eyes and baggies under her sunglasses.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: The "soft-spoken" to An's "energetic". She's painfully shy and anxious, especially in social situations, while An is essentially the greater "face" of the Vivid BAD SQUAD due to her eagerness to meet and interact with new people.
• Fangirl: She's known by Wonderlands x Showtime as their #1 fan, who has shown up to watch their shows from the beginning. She's also this for Phoenix Wonderland in general.
• First-Name Basis: With close friends like Minori and Shiho, as well as her partner An. She refers to everyone else by their last names.
• Flat Character: Downplayed Trope; While she is not completely flat, her character depth pales in comparison to the rest of her group, owing in part to the fact that she is the only member of Vivid BAD SQUAD whose backstory and, to a lesser extent, home life, and how they relate to her personal goals, have yet to be explored three years into the game's story. She has also seen less character development than the other members of her group in the same time period, as her growth as character has centered on her gaining confidence in her singing abilities, and thus helping her improve as a singer, in order for her to surpass RAD WEEKEND and become a better partner to An.
• Foil: To Toya as the followers to their respective partners. They are both quiet in contrast to their partners, but also have several differences:
  • Kohane is shy and anxious, while Toya is simply quiet and stoic.
  • Kohane is new to the music scene, having only discovered it in the unit story after watching An perform. Toya has a background in classical music and has been involved in the street music scene since two years before the unit story began.
  • While Kohane has a supporting and loving family, Toya has to deal with his father's strict expectations and attempts to control him, and the resulting strained relationship he has with him.
  • Kohane and An hit a snag in their partnership sooner than Akito and Toya did, as Toya states that he and Akito got along swimmingly for two years with minimal fights until he forces a Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario to happen in the main story. Meanwhile, while An and Kohane immediately hit it off in the main story, their partnership is challenged in the event Singing in Sync, merely a few weeks into it.
• Girlish Pigtails: Up to her shoulders. Before joining Vivid BAD SQUAD, they went down to her waist.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: While she's usually soft and demure, there are some aspects to her character that could be considered tomboyish:
  • Her style is a cross between a tomboyish and feminine street style, as she'll wear backward caps, beanies, and hoodies along with dresses and skirts. She also wears a lot of pinks.
  • She defies the common stereotype that feminine girls are afraid of snakes and bugs by not only having a snake as a pet but also being fearless toward bugs. She even offers to protect An from bugs when they went camping in Same Dreams, Same Colors.
  • Like the other group members, she raps, such as in "Wah-Wah World", "Rettou Joutou", and the Another Vocal of "RAD DOGS".
• The Glasses Gotta Go: When they first start talking about performing together, An suggests Kohane switches to contacts. Kohane's hesitant at first, but eventually makes the change as a show of her Character Development.
• Grew a Spine: Kohane becoming more confident with time has been a big part of her character development, starting from her first unit event Awakening Beat.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She has pale blond hair and is one of the kindest characters in the main cast.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Unlike the other members of her group, who have more experience but frequently hit walls due to a lack of inherent talent (Akito), some outside force causing their ability to stagnate (Toya), or realizing that they can be surpassed despite being told their entire lives that they're the best (An), Kohane is a newcomer who is revealed to be a naturally gifted singer whose only issue holding her back is her lack of confidence, which she easily overcomes in her very first focus event Awakening Beat. All of her subsequent focus events have surrounded her training and rapid growth into the best singer in the group, with her singing stated to be on par with Nagi's by Kick it up a Notch, her fourth unit focus event.
• The Heart: Downplayed. She tries to play peacekeeper but is usually helpless to do anything when problems occur, such as when Toya and Akito went through their Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario in the group's unit story. While she worries about Toya and tries to ask him if he's sure about leaving Akito and street music, Toya's resolve is firm until he's confronted by Akito himself and brought back to his side by him in the end.
• Hidden Depths:
  • While usually quiet and shy, she isn't so shy that she won't stand up for herself when being talked down to, as evidenced by her response to Akito in the unit story.
  • As explained under Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak, Kohane defies the common stereotype that feminine girls are afraid of bugs, snakes, ghosts, and ghouls. She even declares that she will protect An from these things, much to An's surprise.
• Humble Heroine:
  • She continuously sees herself as inexperienced and unable to catch up to the rest of Vivid BAD SQUAD even after her massive improvement as of Awakening Beat. Taiga tells her that the thing holding her back is her inability to judge herself fairly.
  • When Taiga, a world-famous musician, offers to train her, she initially rejects his offer because she wants to continue practicing as a team. She only changes her mind after being encouraged by Akito, who reminds her that it is an honor to be asked to train with a former member of RadDER.
• Iconic Item:
  • Kohane's "Shooting Star" baseball cap, as seen in her default outfit. Colorful Palette has even made it official merchandise◊.
  • Her hamster mallet is working its way up to be this, as it first appears in her "Awakening My Inner Strength" card from the Awakening Beat event, then returned in the episode of Petit SEKAI in which she wields it as a delinquent. It returns again as a prop in her "I got Praised" 4☆ from the unit event THE POWER OF UNITY.
• Important Haircut: After a devastating speech from Akito and a subsequent pep talk from the Virtual Singers, Kohane cuts her twin tails short as part of her newfound confidence and courage.
• Informed Ability: Following her Character Development in the unit event story Awakening Beat, the characters will often remind the audience about how much more powerful or better her singing is compared to the rest of the group. This is very much informed because the characters never actually sing in event stories, with their vocals in performances always being translated into camera shakes and silent "—!!"'s in the text boxes.
• Informed Attribute: In the April Fools 2023 event, Kohane was assigned to the "Cautious Heart Classroom" in Mikudemy, which is designated for characters that possess excellent leadership qualities. While from a story perspective, Kohane is the best singer in her group with her presence being integral to them surpassing RAD WEEKEND, in terms of characterization, especially when compared to the other characters assigned to the "Cautious Heart Classroom", her ability to lead beyond singing is never demonstrated, and she tends to take a passive role in the group while An and Akito tend to handle things due to having more experience in the street music world. However, it could be a reference to the Petit SEKAI episode where Kohane is made a gang leader.
• Japanese Delinquents: She becomes one in an episode of Petit SEKAI after finding a "bible" that teaches the reader how to become more confident... by becoming a gang leader. Her look is complete with Cool Shades, Sarashi worn around her chest, a long skirt, and three aggressive male posse members who refer to her as "Aniki". She also wields her hamster mallet, which was first seen in her ''Awakening Beat'' trained art◊. This phase is short-lived, however, as An reminds her of her original dream and brings her back to the group.
• Last-Name Basis: With everyone except close friends like Minori and Shiho, and her partner An.
• The Leader: Downplayed. Although Kohane is treated as the representative of the group in advertising for Colorful Stage!, she is not the leader of Vivid BAD SQUAD in the group's story, as the unit doesn't have an actual leader, only Akito and An, who both act as pseudo-leaders in the absence of one.
• Locked Out of the Loop: She and Toya were the only members of Vivid BAD SQUAD to not experience RAD WEEKEND, as they came into their partnerships with An and Akito respectively long after RadDER retired. It wasn't until The Legend Still Vivid that they would be taken to the place where RAD WEEKEND was performed and then get to see a recording of the performance, the next best thing to seeing it in person.
• Love Bubbles: These along with sparkles appear around An when Kohane sees her in her wedding dress for the first time.
• Luminescent Blush: Her shyness makes her easy to fluster, though she will also blush when she's happy at times.
• Mascot: Less so than Leo/need's Ichika, but she's treated as the representative of her group in the advertising alongside Miku, Ichika, Minori, Tsukasa, and Kanade for their respective groups.
• Meaningful Appearance: According to official material, the characteristics of her unit outfit were designed with a wannabe teenager interested in street fashion in mind.
• Mysterious Past: Except for a few hints scattered throughout the story, her life before joining Vivid BAD SQUAD has yet to be explored in depth.
• Never Bareheaded: A good portion of Kohane's outfits incorporates a hat, though she'll occasionally be seen without one.
• Nice Girl: Consistently the nicest member of the group, as An occasionally bullies Akito, Akito is Akito, and even Toya has instances of not being as nice as Kohane, such as when he’s shown to be harsher to Akito about not getting his grades up.
• Palette Swap: During the April Fools' Day 2022 event, she's seen wearing a recolor of Wonderland Rin's default outfit, replacing the orange with pink, the lime green with dark green, and the yellow with orange.
• Pink Means Feminine: Her image color is Ruby Pink and she often incorporates pinks into her wardrobe beyond just her default outfit.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Kohane's usual dynamic with An has her being affectionately doted on by the latter, something she doesn't seem to mind outside of being a little embarrassed. After her Character Development, Kohane also contributes to this dynamic by taking on a more proactive role in her relationship with An, such as when she protects a scared An in Scream!? Welcome to the Wolf Forest, much to An's surprise.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the shy and nervous blue oni to An's perky and outgoing red.
• Rookie Red Ranger: Starts off as a Naïve Newcomer to street music, and is initially looked down upon due to her lack of experience and confidence in her abilities. She comes into her own by Awakening Beat, leading the others to realize her true potential as a singer, and Taiga, a world-famous singer and one of the team members who participated in RAD WEEKEND, noticed her. By Bout for Beside You, he offers to train her to see how far she'll come along with proper training.
• Sentai: In the alternate version of Shibuya introduced in the April Fools' Day 2022 event, she joins the after-school group Happiness Squadron Sunny-Sunny☆Wonder! which is themed after Sentai and was formed with the goal of making children smile. In this group, she works alongside Mafuyu, who acts as the group's leader due to being a second-year student, Emu, who invited her to the group, and Haruka, who joined because she liked the concept. Her ranger name is "Makeover Beast Kohane".
• She Cleans Up Nicely: She loses her mousey look after cutting her hair shorter and trading her glasses for contacts in the unit story.
• Ship Tease: Outside of the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship aspects of their relationship, the mixed event Time to hang out♪ seems to imply that her feelings for An may be more than that of friendship or simply seeing her as a singing partner. The event even features the two going on a double date with Minori and Haruka, to no one who is familiar with the pair's surprise.
• Shrinking Violet: At the start of the story, Kohane is shy and has trouble even introducing herself to her new classmates at the start of the school year. It's only when An invites her to team up that she begins to break out of her shell.
• Stunned Silence: She's rendered speechless upon first seeing An in her wedding dress. An's untrained card is set from her POV◊ as she admires her beauty.
• Super Gullible: An tells her that she aced her test on April Fools' Day, and Kohane wholeheartedly believes her, making An feel bad for lying to her.
• Supporting Protagonist: While there is no real protagonist of the Vivid BAD SQUAD storyline, Kohane is treated as the representative of Vivid BAD SQUAD in advertising for Colorful Stage!. However, her role in the story is more passive and her influence on the plot for the most part is unconscious; in the unit story, she acts as a stand-in for the audience that is introduced to the world of street music at the same time that they are and spends a lot of the story in a reactive state due to her adjusting to the setting. She, along with An, were unintentionally the cause of Toya's decision to break off his partnership with Akito, as witnessing how well they worked together despite their partnership being fairly new exacerbated Toya's insecurity about his ability to be a good partner to Akito. In terms of her event stories, they focus more on her growth as a character and singer while those around her react accordingly, such as Kohane's singing breakthrough in Awakening Beat making Taiga notice her and triggering An's feelings of insecurity and abandonment, both of which would become to center focus of the event story Bout for Beside You. It was also Kohane's determination that made Ken realize that it was time to show the group the secret recording of RAD WEEKEND in The Legend Still Vivid. Meanwhile, it's actually Akito's unit events and direct actions that are more proactive in moving the group's overarching plot, as well as some of his team members' individual character arcs, forward, to the point where the group's first arc ends on his focus event THE POWER OF UNITY.
• Tareme Eyes: Befitting her soft and meek personality.
• Those Two Guys: With An, usually. While she's usually with An, they attend different schools which contribute to the two occasionally showing up without each other, especially in event stories that are focused on either school such as The BEST Summer Ever! and Heat Up! Kamiyama High Cheering Squad!
• Tomboyish Baseball Cap: Starts wearing one as part of her street fashion look.
• Unskilled, but Strong: When it comes to singing and street performance. In Bout for Beside You, Taiga explicitly says she's not quite caught up to the others, but he wonders how well her singing would turn out after training under him.
• You Remind Me of X: Kick it up a notch reveals that this is ultimately the reason Taiga took her under his wing as she reminds him of Nagi. This also becomes the case of everyone who witnessed her performance at Crawl Green and ends up further feeding into An's insecurities.

An Shiraishi

We're gonna surpass and go beyond their dreams...!!

^{Debut Appearance} I know we have what it takes to put on the best show ever!

^{Middle School Appearance}

^{Childhood Appearance}

Voiced by: Tomomi-Jiena Sumi

Birthday: July 26 (Leo)

School: Kamiyama High School

Year: 1st (until 3rd anniversary), 2nd (present)

Hobbies: Cultivating mint plants

Unique Skill: Using a coffee/tea drip

Favorite Food: Rum raisin ice cream

Disliked Food: Tomatoes

Bad with: Ghosts and ghost stories

An is a cool and candid girl with an unyielding spirit. Her father is a former musician and she dreams of being able to put on a live show that surpasses even "RAD WEEKEND", the show that her father used to perform in.

---

• Aborted Arc: An's feelings of envy and inferiority toward Kohane, which first began to show up toward the end of Awakening Beat and were addressed in Bout for Beside You, were quickly forgotten about by the event story Time to hang out♪, which chronologically took place after Bout for Beside You. However, this arc made a short return in Kick it Up a Notch, and then again in BREAK DOWN THE WALL.
• The Ace: She's musically gifted and described by other characters as an individual who is a cut above her peers and someone who has never tasted defeat.
• Always Someone Better: While first hinted at in Awakening Beat, Bout for Beside You and its side stories reveal that An began to feel this way during Kohane's STAY GOLDEN performance due to being confronted with feelings of inadequacy for the first time.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Quite possibly the biggest example of this in the game when her relationship with Kohane, affectionate behavior toward other female characters, and comparative neutrality when interacting with the male characters in the cast come to mind.
  • Haruka implies that Kohane may have been An's Closet Key, as she says An never used to be this clingy before she partnered up with her.
  • An becomes uncharacteristically flustered when she falls into Shizuku's arms in Wishing for Your Happiness Upon the Blue Sky!, thinking to herself that she was "thrilled" to be so close to Shizuku's beauty.
• Big Sister Worship: While not biologically related, she views Nagi as a dependable older sister figure and aspires to be like her. She also views MEIKO and MORE MORE JUMP!'s Shizuku the same way.
• Book Dumb: While An is responsible enough and is part of her school's disciplinary committee, several stories and voice lines hint that An hates studying. One of Kohane's summer voice lines has An attempting to escape from her when she reminds An of studying for the end-of-term tests. As well, her second Kizuna Rank title with Akito confirms that they have being terrible at studying in common.
• Buffy Speak: Not usually, but she speaks like this in her "Nuanced Language" side story when trying to describe to Akito what he should add to the music track he was making, much to Akito's exasperation.
• Childhood Friends: With MORE MORE JUMP's Haruka. She's also known Akito and Toya since middle school, however, the friendship aspect is downplayed due to them not becoming proper "friends" until after Vivid BAD SQUAD is formed.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • She gets jealous when Haruka teases Kohane in Time to hang out♪.
  • There's also another instance when Rin expresses interest in singing with Kohane, and she playfully reminds Rin that Kohane is her partner.
• Cool Big Sis: While she has no younger siblings, she aspires to be an older sister figure that is mature and relied upon by others.
• Cuddle Bug: She's very physically affectionate with her partner Kohane, much to Kohane's embarrassment. She's also not shy about being this way with her other friends, like Airi in Wishing for Your Happiness Beyond the Blue Sky!.
• Daddy's Girl: An admires her father, that admiration growing ever since the day she witnessed his performance in the RAD WEEKEND event, and aspires to perform as he does.
• Decoy Protagonist: The Vivid BAD SQUAD unit story opens with a CG of An viewing RAD WEEKEND and a monologue about her dream. However, when the story officially begins, the POV switches to Kohane due to her status as the Audience Surrogate, while An is the one who introduces Kohane to street music after Kohane stumbles upon her performance. This is significant, as it's the only unit story CG that doesn't open with the representative of the unit. That said, the POV does switch to An depending on the chapter, as well as to the other two members of the unit.
• Does Not Like Spam: In one area conversation, An gets excited about a new burger from a local fast food chain, but is immediately turned off by the presence of tomatoes, reasoning that if it already has ketchup on it it shouldn't have tomatoes.
• Everyone Can See It: Suggested to be the case in her Time to hang out♪ side story. When she goes to tell her friend circle that she's going on a date, everyone except the street musician customers at WEEKEND GARAGE immediately knows it's with Kohane. After a hint from her father, even the street musicians realize it couldn't be with anyone else and encourage it.
• Eyelid Pull Taunt: She does this pose in the trained art of her Colorful Festival card◊.
• The Face:
  • Shares this role with Akito in Vivid BAD SQUAD. As the biggest social butterfly of the group, she has no issue befriending new people and handling most social situations.
  • This also extends to her role in Vivids due to Kohane being the shyer and less experienced person in the duo.
  • An has a tendency to gather others to do impromptu performances, something even Akito commends her for having the guts to do.
• Fairy Tale Wedding Dress: She wears one when she's asked to model for a bridal shoot in Wishing for Your Happiness Upon the Blue Sky!, complete with a tiara. Ironically, the dress that can be unlocked from the card associated with this event looks less like a wedding dress and more like something a bridesmaid would wear.
• Family Eye Resemblance: She has her father's dark-orange eyes.
• First-Name Basis: With nearly every character she interacts with, usually without honorifics. There are some exceptions, such as Shiho, who she refers to as "Hinomori-san" after meeting her in Scream!? Welcome to the Wolf Forest.
• Foil:
  • To N25's Kanade:
    • Both are a Daddy's Girl and had a close relationship with their fathers, with both fathers being musicians, the difference being the genre they specialized in.
    • An's father is around to aid Vivid BAD SQUAD in their goal every step in the way, while Kanade's father had never met the rest of N25 and had only just barely started to recover from his collapse by Carnation Recollection.
    • An still has a close relationship with her father, and her father supports her goals, while Kanade's relationship with her father is currently strained due to his memory loss rendering him unable to recognize her as his daughter at all.
    • An's mother is still alive and Happily Married to her father according to one area conversation with Kohane that can be unlocked after clearing the event story An Ode for the Pure of Heart. Kanade's mother had passed away from illness and her father is currently hospitalized after falling into a coma, and is currently said to be in rehabilitation.
    • An serves as the driving force for VBS due to her desire to surpass RAD WEEKEND, but Kohane is treated as the unit's leader. Kanade is treated as the unit leader for N25, but the unit is largely driven by Mafuyu and her desire to "disappear".
    • An is a cheerful Nice Girl while Kanade has a Sugar-and-Ice Personality.
  • She also acts as one to her fellow unit member Akito:
    • While they take on leadership positions in their respective subunits, the timings of their partnerships differ, as Akito formed BAD DOGS with Toya two years before the main story while Vivids was formed with Kohane during it.
    • While they have their loyalty to their partners in common, their underlying feelings toward them differ. Initially, An viewed Kohane as the newcomer she was and had the desire to guide her instead of viewing her as an equal. Akito views Toya as his equal partner but knows that Toya is more skilled than him musically, thus fueling his desire to catch up to him so that he can be worthy of being his partner.
    • They also reacted differently to their respective partners' growth. In Nocturne Interlude, Akito is elated to finally hear Toya sing freely and congratulates him. On An's side, feelings of inferiority and a fear of being left behind begin to bubble up in her when Kohane begins to sing confidently in Awakening Beat.
    • An grew up with a famous musician for a father, which developed into a natural talent for singing and a desire to pursue the same path as him. Akito's father is a famous artist, but Akito has no interest in pursuing an artistic career despite having a talent for it, as he found his dream of being a street performer and is determined to go down that path despite being told that he's unqualified.
    • How An and Akito are regarded by the people of Vivid Street differ as well. While An is loved and respected by them due to growing up on Vivid Street and establishing bonds with its residents and visitors, as well as because she's the daughter of Ken Shiraishi, Akito struggles with gaining their respect due to being regarded as talentless and is treated far more harshly by them.
  • And also to Toya:
    • Both have famous musicians as fathers, but Toya's father is famous for being a classical musician while An's is a renowned street musician.
    • An has a good relationship with her open-minded father who is trusting and encourages her dream of becoming a street musician like him. On the other hand, Toya's relationship with his father is strained, as he disagrees with Toya's dream of becoming a street musician, viewing it as worthless, and wants him to have a secure future as a classical musician like him instead. Even after Toya reaches out to him, his father is disgruntled but resigned to the idea of Toya continuing his street musician activities at best.
    • Both characters begin the story very focused on their respective partners. However, after the main story, Toya's network of interactions expands beyond just his partnership with Akito. On An's side, by the game's first anniversary, her character is still primarily focused on Kohane, making her relationship with characters outside of her group and Toya less defined as a result.
    • Both An and Toya have insecurities about their usefulness to their partners, albeit for different reasons. While Toya wanted to continue chasing his dream with Akito, he was worried that he had a half-hearted resolve and less to offer Akito than others he could potentially team up with. This led to him attempting to break off their partnership so that Akito could find someone more motivated. An is aware of her talent and drive, but upon seeing Kohane sing confidently and garner a big reaction from the crowd, she experiences the feeling of loss for the first time and fears Kohane might surpass and abandon her one day.
• Forgetful Jones: She forgot who Koutaro was despite having multiple face-to-face interactions with him. She also forgets that Toya has a strained relationship with his father, but is implied to feel bad about it when he reminds her.
• Friendly Rivalry:
  • She has this sort of dynamic with Akito due to their competitive natures.
  • She also has this relationship with Haruka, dating back to elementary school. Their Trust Rank title reveals that they're evenly matched in everything except studying.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: As of the game's 1.5 anniversary, of the members of Vivid BAD SQUAD, her relationship with Toya is the least defined. After the main story, while they do interact with each other, up until Same Dreams, Same Colors the pair hadn't interacted in a truly meaningful way, nor do they have a dynamic in the same way An does with Akito or Kohane.
• Generation Xerox: Invoked Trope. She wanted to become a street musician and host an event to surpass RAD WEEKEND because she looks up to her father. Bout for Beside You reveals that they also go through the similar feeling of being surpassed by their partner and feeling left behind by them.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: A platonic example with Akito. She's an energetic Genki Girl, while Akito is usually more serious and has a tendency to be irritable, especially during their interactions.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: She has the most music experience of the members in her group due to being born and raised into the music scene by her father and growing up training under her surrogate aunt Nagi. By high school, she is considered a cut above her peers who never tasted defeat until Kohane, her new partner who had the least experience with music of anyone on her team, comes into her own as a singer in Awakening Beat after becoming more confident, easily wowing the crowd with her powerful vocals.
• Hates Wearing Dresses: While she doesn't hate wearing dresses, she leans more toward tomboyish styles and her usual attire outside of trained illustrations and her school uniform consists of shorts, pants, and long shirts with tights underneath. Wishing for Your Happiness Beyond the Blue Sky! touches on this a bit more, as An feels that she's unsuited to wear a wedding dress, feeling as though a tuxedo would suit her much more.
• Height Angst: In an early Area Conversation with Toya, she reveals that she's jealous of tall people because of the advantage when playing basketball and reaching for high-up things. She also bemoans the fact that she didn't grow up to be taller.
• Hidden Depths:
  • While truly supportive of Kohane from their first meeting, An unconsciously viewed Kohane as "lesser" than her, treating Kohane as someone that needed to be "protected" and "guided" rather than an equal to her as a partner. Akito calls her out on this in Singing in Sync, forcing An to reevaluate the way she views Kohane and own up to it by the end of the story.
  • An becomes insecure, envious, and lonely after Kohane begins to come into her own as a singer in Awakening Beat, with the follow-up event story Bout for Beside You explaining that it's because she's afraid to lose Kohane after finally finding the perfect partner after feeling alone for so long. Her fes story expands on this, as she struggled to find someone to chase her dreams with before meeting Kohane despite knowing so many people that held the same dream that she did.
  • While it was hinted at as far back as MEIKO's initial 1☆ side story "Dashing Red Melody", Wishing for Your Happiness Beyond the Blue Sky! suggests that An likes the idea of being coddled by reliable and kind older sister figures like MEIKO, Shizuku, and Nagi, despite her poor attempts to deny it. The event also reveals that An wants to become an older sister figure, as she has insecurities about how others perceive her and her maturity. By the end of the event, she resolves to grow as a person so that the other members of Vivid BAD SQUAD and the people of the city can look up to and rely on her more.
  • Walk on and on reveals she and Akito make the songs that they perform at Vivid BAD SQUAD events, with the development process being either one coming up with an idea for a song, making a demo, and then meeting up while the creation of the demo is in progress to discuss what should be added or changed. She learned how to make music from her father and Nagi, who involved her in the music scene while she was growing up.
• Humble Hero: She's widely considered to be musically gifted and is the daughter of a famous street musician which netted her various musical connections from the start. Despite this, she doesn't flaunt her status in front of the characters nor does she use these connections she has to gain an advantage over anyone else. This ends up being Subverted in Singing in Sync however, as An's experience was a contributing factor to her looking down on Kohane, who was inexperienced in the world of street music. She gets better.
• I Am Not Pretty: In Wishing for Your Happiness Beyond the Blue Sky! she feels insecure about having to model a bridal dress due to feeling ill-fitted for the beautiful and mature image brides tend to give off.
• Idol Singer: In the alternate version of Shibuya introduced in the April Fools' Day 2022 event, she becomes a temporary member of the idol group YUME YUME JUMP!, performing alongside the group's other members Shizuku, Kanade, and Shiho.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: She was lonely before meeting Kohane, which fueled her desperation to find a partner. By the events of THE POWER OF UNITY, she's accepted that the other members of Vivid BAD SQUAD are her best friends and is delighted to have made even more friends in Arata, the members of EVER, and Koutaro, all of whom she wants to chase her dreams with.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With her father's former teammates Taiga and Nagi, both of whom she's known since she was a child and views as family. She's also friends with the older street musicians that frequent WEEKEND GARAGE.
• Irony:
  • She's a part of the disciplinary committee and is someone tasked with regulating the code of conduct in school, but she hates studying and actively goes out of her way to avoid doing it.
  • Her Genki Girl personality makes her one of the best potential examples of a social butterfly in the game. Despite this, for a while, she had the smallest friend circle of anyone in her group.^note Outside of Vivid BAD SQUAD, she was friends with Mizuki and Haruka, only having a passing association with Rui and Tsukasa until well into the second year of the game. Meanwhile, Kohane was friends with her classmates at the time, Shiho and Minori, was close with Emu, knew Tsukasa due to his association with Phoenix Wonderland, and befriended Ichika early on. Akito got to know Tsukasa, Mizuki, and Rui early on, is related to Ena, is acquainted with Airi through her, and is friends with the NPC Koutaro who tended to show up in his focus events. Toya is Childhood Friends with Tsukasa and Saki, is acquainted with Ena through Akito, was acquainted with Nene through the two being in the same class at the time, and got to know Rui and Mizuki early on.
• Kaleidoscope Hair: Her hair color changes often with her limited card unlock hairstyles. By default, her hair is black with a dark-blue gradient, but it becomes black with a red gradient and magenta highlights in her Vivid Crew lim, black with a dark-blue underlayer in her Lovely Vivid Devil lim, and solid black with a pale peach gradient in her Garnet Rozen lim.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: The side-plot of Wishing for Your Happiness Beyond the Blue Sky! has her looking for Vivi, a stray cat that typically wanders around Vivid Street, as An was worried that she could have been injured by a truck. When they find her up a tree during the wedding photo shoot, An's willing to climb the tree while wearing a wedding dress to help get her down.
• The Leader:
  • She assumes a leadership position in her subunit Vivids due to her partner Kohane being the less confident of the duo. This becomes a point of contention in Singing in Sync due to An's "leading" Kohane being equated to not viewing her as an equal. An is still treated as the more worldly of the two even after they come to an understanding, though Kohane gradually begins to come into her own as the story progresses.
  • An also adopts a pseudo-leadership position in Vivid BAD SQUAD, sharing this role with Akito, though her main role involves being The Face and contributing to making the music for the group, while Akito does a variety of other things for the team, such as deciding practice times and where the group will perform.
• Locked Out of the Loop: At Nagi's behest, she was the only person on Vivid Street who didn't know about her death until Light Up the Fire.
• Lonely Among People: Bout for Beside You reveals that despite her social butterfly tendencies, An felt lonely before meeting and befriending Kohane. Her FES story expands on this by explaining that while she had met others that held the same dream of surpassing RAD WEEKEND in the past, none of them ever asked her to do it together, which made it difficult for her to find a partner. Even Akito, who had talked about surpassing RAD WEEKEND since they first met, had quickly found his ideal partner in Toya instead.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Inverted; she has one of the longest hairstyles among the main cast, but is more of a tomboy than her best friend Haruka, who has short hair and is seen as more traditionally feminine.
• Luminescent Blush: While she's not as easy to fluster as Kohane, she does have moments, such as when Kohane takes the initiative to cuddle or compliment her, or when she's called out on her desire to be coddled by older sister figures.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: To Kohane, as a bright and energetic girl who introduces the shy newcomer Kohane to and brings her into the world of street music.
• Nice Girl: While she has a few moments of vitriol with people she is familiar with, she is friendly and nice. She's also the only one of Mizuki's classmates during their first year of high school to accept Mizuki for who they are, and she tries to hang out with them sometimes.
• No Sense of Personal Space:
  • It's rare to see her not cuddling up to Kohane.
  • She also excitedly invades Ena's space upon first meeting her, much to Ena's discomfort. Ena discusses An's disregard for personal space with Akito in her "Hermit Searcher" side story:
    Ena: I met the girls from the team Akito is on for the first time.
    Ena and Akito's Mother: What were they like?
    Ena: One was reserved and quiet. And the other one is... Hmm - ... Is she the kind of girl that has a buggy sense of distance?
    Akito: What kind of explanation is that ...
  • This gets turned around on her in Wishing for Your Happiness Upon the Blue Sky!, as she becomes uncharacteristically shy and flustered when close to Shizuku.
  • According to Haruka in Time to hang out♪, she wasn't always this clingy, meaning that her relationship with Kohane likely brought this side out of her.
• Platonic Declaration of Love: Declares that she loves the people of the city in The Vivid Old Tale. The stamp that can be unlocked from clearing the Virtual Live even says "I Love You, Everyone". She also declares that she loves Kohane on various occasions, though it's questionable whether or not she means it platonically after a certain point.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Develops a fear of being abandoned by Kohane after Kohane begins to come into her own as a singer in Awakening Beat, a fear that takes the center focus of focus event Bout for Beside You.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: An is incredibly affectionate toward Kohane and seems to enjoy doting on her. The "platonic" aspect of their dynamic becomes increasingly questionable as the story goes on.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: An's the perky and outgoing red to Kohane's meek and nervous blue.
• Satellite Character: Zig-zagged. Throughout the main story and Vivid BAD SQUAD-related stories, a lot of An's interests and motivations are centered around Kohane. However, her Hidden Depths, which were brought out by her partnership with Kohane, serve to explain why she's this way. The writers seemingly poke fun at An's fixation on Kohane in Time to hang out♪ by having none of the characters she's associated with being surprised that her date is with Kohane.

  An: I'm going on a date this vacation!

  Akito and Toya: (Yeah, It's with Kohane) (It's with Azusawa, right?)

  Akito: Well, go have fun.

  An: Eh, what? Hey...

  Toya: Yeah, you need a break every once in a while.

  An: By any chance, did you know it was with Kohane?

  Toya: Hm? Oh, yes.

  Akito: I mean, who else is there?

• Secret-Keeper: She's one of the few characters that is aware of Mizuki's past and takes care not to disclose anything Mizuki wouldn't want others to know without checking in with them first.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: While she usually dresses like a girly tomboy, An is capable of looking elegant as shown in Wishing for Your Happiness Upon the Blue Sky! where she dons a wedding dress for a photoshoot. Kohane is so stunned by her appearance that she's left speechless.
• Ship Tease: Outside of the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship aspects of their relationship, the mixed event Time to hang out♪ seems to imply that her feelings for Kohane may be more than that of friendship or seeing her as a partner. The event even features the two going on a double date with Minori and Haruka, to no one's surprise, which An is disappointed by.
• Shipper on Deck: Time to hang out♪ shows that she's very supportive of Haruka's relationship with Minori, and she notices early on how much they "like" each other.
• Signature Hair Decs: Outside of limited hairstyle changes, she's almost never seen without her star-shaped hair decorations. They're even present in her middle-school appearance, though they're absent in her child model.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Inverted, as An doesn't look like her father, Ken Shiraishi, outside of them both having dark-orange eyes and wavy hair.
• Sunny Sunflower Disposition: Her third unit focus event, The Vivid Old Tale, gives her a sunflower motif in her trained card, with the rest of the group drawn to reflect her worldview.
• Those Two Guys: It's rare for An to appear in an event story that doesn't involve Kohane in some way. As of the game's first anniversary, the only exceptions have been her last-minute appearance in An Ode for the Pure of Heart and Heat Up! Kamiyama High Cheering Squad!.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak:
  • She wears a normal tie with her Kamiyama school uniform, compared to the other female students, and Mizuki, who wears bows.
  • An's outfits tend to consist of shorts or long shirts with tights underneath paired with jackets and hoodies. However, she'll usually combine these with colorful hairclips, star-shaped earrings, and her signature star-shaped hair beads.
  • An has no issue wearing a tuxedo in the event An Ode for the Pure of Heart and later declares that she's more suited for a tuxedo than a wedding dress. However, the full art of her "Last-Minute Dancer" 2☆ shows that she wore a pair of high heels with her outfit.
  • Her unlockable costumes occasionally lean more feminine than the outfits she usually wears, such as her "Beast Heart Buddy" costume from Awakening Beat and her "Loving Sunflower" outfit from The Vivid Old Tale.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: She ties her hair up in this style in the event Same Dreams, Same Colors. This was also her hairstyle as a far more tomboyish child.
• Trademark Favorite Food: She loves rum raisin ice cream.
• Unconventional Wedding Dress: Her "Garnet Rozen" outfit from her Dressed in Pure White card. While the untrained depicts An wearing a proper wedding dress, the actual outfit that's unlocked looks more like something a bridesmaid would wear to a wedding, as it's a layered red dress adorned with roses. The fourth Another Color turns the dress white and cream-colored, making it look closer to a proper wedding dress.
• Used to Be a Tomboy: Downplayed. Flashbacks to An's middle school and childhood appearances show that her tomboyish style evolved as she got older. By high school, she's now a Tomboy with a Girly Streak.
• Useless Accessory: She wears a pair of lime-green headphones around her neck in her default outfit that she has yet to be seen using.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Akito. On top of their friendly rivalry, they tend to bicker almost as often as Akito does with Ena, but it's just another sign of how close they've become as friends since Vivid BAD SQUAD was formed.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • An is scared of ghosts and anything related to ghost stories.
  • She's also scared of bugs according to an Area Conversation with the group.
• You Never Did That for Me: Feels this way toward Taiga, who offered to train Kohane despite declining An's request to be trained by him when she was younger.

Akito Shinonome

There's no way we can be satisfied with our current level!

^{Debut Appearance} This world isn't one that you can just step into on a whim.

^{Middle School Appearance (Briefly)}

^{Elementary School Appearance}

^{Childhood Appearance}

Voiced by: Fumiya Imai (teen), Reina Aoyama (child)

Birthday: November 12 (Scorpio)

School: Kamiyama High School

Year: 1st (until 3rd anniversary), 2nd (present)

Hobbies: Fashion coordination

Unique Skill: Human beatbox

Favorite Food: Pancakes, cheesecake

Disliked Food: Carrots

Bad with: Dogs

Looking up to An's father, Akito has been a musician since middle school. He sings with his partner Toya at live houses under the group name "BAD DOGS."

---

• The Ace:
  • He's fairly adept when it comes to sports and other physical activities, and is often recruited to help out in various clubs.
  • He's also a good artist but is apathetic about this skill, only occasionally utilizing it to create graffiti art.
• Always Second Best:
  • While he's garnered his own reputation as a street musician, side stories reveal that he's always been seen as a weak link to Toya since their formation of BAD DOGS. However, unlike most examples of this trope, he doesn't hold it against Toya or resent him for it, instead striving to improve himself so that he can match or surpass him as a partner.
  • Arata extends this sentiment to all of Vivid BAD SQUAD vs him as of STRAY BAD DOG.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • While it has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the story never goes into why Akito puts on a facade of politeness for characters he's unfamiliar with when he often drops it as soon as he gets to know them.
  • It is also unclear what his home life is like, as nearly everything shown about the Shinonome household is from Ena's perspective. Because of this, his relationship with his father is also comparatively less defined. The only thing the player knows about them is that he was taught painting by his father but quit out of boredom.
• Ambiguously Gay: While he qualifies, his abrasiveness and occasional shyness, which have gradually subsided with his Character Development, make him more "ambiguous" than his verbally more affectionate partner Toya. Having said that, his relationship with Toya is heavily emphasized throughout the story, to the point where the majority of the games' Homoerotic Subtext examples come from their eyebrow-raising interactions. However, nothing is made clear other than the fact that they are each other's most important person.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Wolves, likely as a reference to his Wolf in Sheep's Clothing front. One of his Kizuna Ranks with Kohane alludes to this by deeming them "Hamuhamu and Wolf in Disguise"^note COLORFUL STAGE's "Trust Rank" translation goes for a more direct interpretation of the phrase that was used, instead translating the title as "Hammie and Feigned Innocence". In his "Together With the Plushies" side story, it's also the animal he picks in the Anime-themed shooter game "Gunslinger Jungle" that he plays with Toya in the arcade. Ironically, Akito is as afraid of wolves just as much as he is of dogs, as revealed in Paint What You Love ♪ Rainbow Canvas event story.
  • He's also been represented by orange cats on three separate occasions. First in Toya's "Relaxing Coffee Break◊" 3☆ card, second in his "A Winter Evening Chat◊" 4☆ trained illustration, and lastly in Toya's "The Aoyagi Household's Christmas Party◊" 4☆ trained illustration.
• Anger Born of Worry: Tends to get angry at Toya when he's worried about him. Exemplified in Nocturne Interlude when Toya's home situation begins to have a lingering effect on Toya's singing, forcing the group to confront the ongoing issue.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Ena considers him one, to the point where she considers wishing for a more likable brother for Tanabata.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: His reluctance to show it aside, Akito does care about his sister Ena and looks after her. He's also vaguely supportive of Ena making new friends, and thanks her friends for looking after her.
• Berserk Button:
  • Being looked down upon or being treated like a child.
  • He also despises people that participate in street music but don't take it seriously.
• Big Brother Instinct: While he's Ena's younger brother, he looks out for her in this way and makes sure she's taking care of herself, even if he does so in a begrudging way.
• Big Eater: He's implied to be one, though it doesn't come up often. His "Happy Birthday!!" 2022 side story hints at how much the boy can eat, as he eats the roll cake his classmate got him, a birthday feast made by MEIKO, and a birthday cake Ken made him at WEEKEND GARAGE throughout the day. He goes for a run after eating so much food, which somehow makes him hungry again by the time he gets home. Ena then gives him a birthday cheesecake she made with her friends and Akito tries to eat it with his bare hands before Ena runs to get him a fork.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Not a bad guy overall, but he tends to put on the appearance of being affable and polite around people he's unfamiliar with (An and Kohane initially, Airi, Mafuyu, Arata...). When he's around people he knows, he's much more surly and forward.
• Book Dumb: Although not necessarily lacking in intelligence, he is shown to be quite bad at studying and was stated to have "split his answers [to a test] evenly between guesswork and gut feeling" in an area conversation between Toya and An.
• Boy Band: In the alternate version of Shibuya introduced in the April Fools' Day 2022 event, he and Toya team up with Tsukasa and Rui to form the "backstreet entertainer" group FANTASISTA SQUAD, which combined elements of street singing and stage play production into their performances.
• Brilliant, but Lazy:
  • Akito inherited a natural talent for art but forgoes using it in favor of pursuing music, something that irritates Ena to no end. Toya also remarks that he would probably do better in school if he put his mind to it.
  • He excels when it comes to sports and was recruited for various clubs in elementary school, only to turn them down because he was bored of being better than everyone else.
• Brutal Honesty: He can be very blunt when giving feedback and his harsh critiques are usually a shock for people who aren’t used to them. Kohane in particular has had to learn how to take his criticisms in stride and not take them personally.
• Can't Catch Up: STRAY BAD DOG revealed that Akito himself feels that he is falling behind in regards to how skilled of a performer he is compared to his own partner Toya, and took long practices to be able to be on Toya's level for the sake of conquering RAD WEEKEND. Kotaro even mentioned that at one point, Akito practiced to the point his voice was hoarse. As of Bout for Beside You, Akito is considered to be the weakest singer of the group who needs to work harder to catch up to the others, with this point being expressed by characters who have watched their performances, as well as Mafuyu and Mizuki in Ena's side story.
• Can't Take Criticism: Inverted. He can take criticism as well as he can dole it out, and even agrees with Arata when Arata points out that he lacks the natural talent the rest of Vivid BAD SQUAD has.
• Character Development: Across the BURN MY SOUL and BREAK DOWN THE WALL events, he finally comes to terms with his singing abilities and realises that pushing himself for absolute perfection was ultimately what was holding him back. He starts putting more passion into his performances thanks to some mentoring from Ken, and starts to truly believe he can surpass RAD WEEKEND.
• Chick Magnet: Played for Laughs in Petit SEKAI when he and Toya begin helping out An and Kohane at WEEKEND GARAGE in Ken's absence and their presence as the staff there ends up attracting hordes of female customers.
• Childhood Friends:
  • With Toya, who he met in middle school and has been inseparable from ever since the formation of BAD DOGS.
  • He's also known An since middle school, however, the friendship aspect is downplayed due to them not becoming proper "friends" until after Vivid BAD SQUAD is formed.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Acts as one to Toya whenever his air-headed tendencies begin to crop up.
• Cool Big Bro: To Len and Rin, despite not being related to them. He also takes on an older brotherly role to Kohane after his Character Development.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Akito shows hints of jealousy toward Toya's closeness to Tsukasa. This calms down when he is not only informed that they are Childhood Friends, but also realizes that if it weren't for Tsukasa, he and Toya may have never met. He still treats Tsukasa dismissively and doesn't like Toya being involved with him, but ultimately feels thankful for his involvement in Toya's life.

  Akito: [grimaces] (I don't get it... Why's Toya so enamored with that guy?)

• Cruel to Be Kind: Subverted Trope. In her "Countdown to Christmas!" side story, Kohane recounts the harsh words Akito said to her in the group's unit story, interpreting it as him doing her a kindness to prepare her for how demanding it is to sing in the world of street music without experience. Kotaro dismisses this interpretation, as he doesn't believe that Akito is that good of a person. Toya follows him up by saying that Akito was emotional at that time and that his experience at CRAWL GREEN likely fueled him to say those words. Kohane takes this in stride.
• The Cynic:
  • While Toya tends to try to see the best in people, Akito tends to be more suspicious of others. An example of this is their differing attitudes towards Kohane and An initially, as well as Tsukasa and Rui.
  • Akito sets high expectations for his group mates and for himself because he views the music industry as unforgiving, a viewpoint he likely gets from his father, who has the same view regarding the world of art.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Unlike most shonen protagonists who overcome their flaws through sheer determination and harsh training, Akito's growth is portrayed more realistically. He doesn't show significant improvement in his singing regardless of how hard he pushes himself within a period because talent doesn't just manifest because you want it badly. One doesn't reach the same level as someone that is inherently talented overnight as it takes time and dedication and sometimes will never happen.
• The Defroster: Initially implied to have been one to Toya, which is later confirmed by Tsukasa. Toya is hostile and distant toward Akito during their initial interactions, and Tsukasa says that he had a hard time making Toya smile when they were kids, no doubt due in part to his home life. However, by the Vivid BAD SQUAD unit story and its connected side stories, Toya is a much warmer person that smiles more often and is very attached to Akito. Tsukasa says he has Akito to thank for Toya's smile. Even after the unit story, Akito continues to play a large part in Toya's Character Development which moves him toward becoming a happier and more emotive person overall.
• Defrosting Ice King: Gradually warms up to the other, non-Toya members of the cast as his character develops from the unit event STRAY BAD DOG. By THE POWER OF UNITY, he's become a much nicer person, though he can still occasionally come off as grumpy.
• Delinquent Hair: He is a street performer who has several strands of his otherwise orange hair dyed blonde.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: A variant. Before he attended the RAD WEEKEND event, Akito used to get by with just his natural talent up until he lost an important soccer match in Elementary School, which made him decide to give up on it and become listless. It wasn't until Ena introduced him to music that he found his new passion, and seeing Ken perform made him realize that there's more to life, thus he started to dedicate himself to music and aim to surpass the event.
• Deuteragonist: While Kohane is treated as a groups representative in advertising for Colorful Stage!, he fits more squarely into this trope as the character that drives the plot forward and supports Vivid BAD SQUAD as a whole. His character arc and unit event stories also play more closely into the storyline of a shonen protagonist, the genre of Manga the Vivid BAD SQUAD storyline is inspired by, to the point where his first character song was literally about him overcoming his struggles and becoming the protagonist of his story. As well, the unit's first arc ended on his focus event with the group closer than before to surpassing RAD WEEKEND and with MEIKO singing with the group for the first time.
• Dub Personality Change: While he still retains his Jerkass with a Heart of Gold personality at his core, his way of speaking has been changed in the Colorful Stage translation of the game, making it come off as stiffer compared to his gruffer, masculine way of speech in the games original language. As well, in two cases of bowdlerization, the translation also doesn't allow him to swear as much, and, perhaps most confusingly, downplays the "deredere" aspect of his character that he most often shows to his partner, Toya, by changing the way he words things.
• Dull Surprise: He treats the news that An is going on a date with Kohane with indifference in An's Peak Excitement! side story, much to An's disappointment.
• Early-Bird Cameo: A younger Akito can be seen in Vivid BAD SQUAD's unit story's opening CG before he made a proper appearance in chapter 4.
• Easily Embarrassed Youngster:
  • While not as shy as Kohane, he occasionally becomes bashful when he's treated like a child or teased.
  • He also gets shy about admitting to doing nice things for others.
• Elemental Motifs: Both of his image songs use heavy allusions to light be it from the light of a film projector or the light of the moon that he's chasing after. His last name also fits in with this motif as "Shinonome" means dawn.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Once Mizuki gets acquainted with Akito in person in the Kamiyama High Festival! event, they start calling Akito "Li'l Bro"^NoteOtouto-kun in the Japanese text, mostly just to mess with him. Akito hates it.
• The Face: Less so than An, though his deceptive tendencies have proven that he's fairly adept at handling most social interactions. He was originally shown doing most of the talking for BAD DOGS since his partner Toya was the The Quiet One. While Toya's later character development allowed him to become more social, Akito is still treated as the more worldly of the two.
• Fiery Redhead: He has orange hair and is quick to anger.
• First-Name Basis: He refers to almost everyone by their first name without any honorifics, except for characters he's still putting up a polite guy front for, "older" characters like Ken, MEIKO, KAITO, and Luka, all of whom he uses "-san" for, and Tsukasa and Rui, who he refers to as "[X]-senpai".
• Foil:
  • To his partner Toya:
    • Toya appears stoic and aloof at first towards others but is very friendly. Akito appears friendly and polite at first but is quite surly and difficult to get along with.
    • Toya has a natural talent for music despite being originally unsure of why he's pursuing it, while Akito is extremely passionate about music but is told that he lacks the talent for it.
    • They both reject their family legacies in classical music for Toya and art for Akito despite having a talent for it. Their families react differently to their decisions: Toya's family tries to force him back into classical music, while Akito's family appears to be apathetic, or, in Ena's case, shuns him.
    • Toya is a bookworm who is bad at physical activities, while Akito is adept at sports, regular exercises, and hates reading unless it's Manga.
    • Akito loves sweets and can't drink his coffee black while Toya prefers bitter flavors and can't handle sweets.
  • To N25's Mafuyu:
    • They both wear people-pleasing masks in front of others, but while Mafuyu does so to hide her lack of personality, Akito presumably does it to hide the disagreeable aspects of his attitude until he's familiar with the person he's speaking to.
    • Mafuyu's parents are controlling and hyper-present in her life, while Akito's parents are rarely mentioned in his stories and seem apathetic to whatever he does. Someday, This Wish Will Transcend the Morning Sky confirms that his mother is fairly lax and allows him to do what he wants because she believes he has his own life to live, making her the exact opposite of Mafuyu's parents.
    • Mafuyu excels at anything she does but doesn't seem to particularly notice or care about it, Akito is talented at many things but fixates on the things he struggles with.
    • They're both the targets of Ena's resentment, Mafuyu unknowingly so, while Akito may be aware of it. They both also help Ena in differing ways: Mafuyu directly by finally acknowledging her work, while Akito helps her indirectly by convincing their father to ease up on her.
• Friendless Background: Find A Way Out confirms that Akito didn't have many friends prior to meeting Toya because he was too busy focusing on improving his singing to socialize.
• Friendly Rivalry:
  • He has this dynamic An due to their similarly competitive natures.
  • He also has a one-sided rivalry with Toya, who he has been training to match and/or surpass since they first met.
  • He develops with Wonderlands x Showtime in At This Festival Tinged With Twilight due to the group performing at the same festival as Vivid BAD SQUAD. This is also what prompts him to help Rui after his accident, as he believes Rui's injury may jeopardize Wonderlands x Showtime's performance if he doesn't make it back to his group in time.
• Friendship Denial: In the early Vivid BAD SQUAD stories, he would deny viewing An and Kohane as anything other than coworkers working toward the same goal. This dissipates following the event story STRAY BAD DOG.
• The Gadfly: He enjoys teasing An, Kohane, and Tsukasa for kicks, especially the latter, since they are easy targets, while An is the only one who usually returns the sentiment. He also occasionally does this to Rin and Len.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: A platonic example with An. She's an energetic Genki Girl, while he is usually serious during their interactions and has a tendency to be irritable.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Inverted Trope, as Akito has bright orange hair to match his passionate personality, contrasting Toya's half-black, half-pale blue hair that reflects his calmer temperament.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He can get pretty testy when provoked. As such, a number of his early cards depict him looking pissed off.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: He slacks behind his other team members despite the years he spent trying to improve his singing. However, by Find A Way Out, he's made enough progress to take down the senior musician that humiliated him in middle school.
• The Heart: In spite of his attitude, Akito has been the one holding the group together since the unit story. It was Akito's heartfelt speech that brought Toya back to his side after their break up in the unit story. He was also the one to spur An's self-reflection and development into being a better partner to Kohane in both Singing in Sync and Bout for Beside You. As well, he's primarily the one encouraging the growth of his teammates, particularly when it comes to Toya and Kohane and their issues with self-confidence.
• Held Gaze: With Toya in the 3DMV for "Cinema".
• Hey, You!:
  • In the unit story, he would derogatorily refer to Kohane as "chibi".^note "ちび", "runt" or "pipsqueak"
  • He rarely calls An by her name, instead saying "Oi" or "Hey" to her. Humorously, when the group's terms of address chart was updated for the game's third anniversary, the only change made to it was to acknowledge the fact that he rarely ever refers to her by name.
  • Originally never referred to Tsukasa by name in the Japanese version, usually calling him "that guy", "him", or "weirdo one"... or simply "senpai" when talking to him directly. After his Character Development, he does occasionally refer to him as "Tsukasa-senpai".
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite appearing to be fairly confident and showing leadership qualities, Akito is fully aware of his failings as a singer, especially when it comes to being Toya's partner, as he's had to deal with being called inferior to him since the early days of their partnership. When he's called talentless by Arata Tono in STRAY BAD DOG, he agrees with him and doesn't allow Toya to belittle himself to defend him.
  • He is very into coordinating fashion and took his part-time job at a clothing store very seriously. In his 2* side story, despite being annoyed by An and Kohane showing up suddenly while he was working, he didn't hesitate to take over for his manager in helping them pick out an outfit for Kohane to wear to an event. When Kohane thanked him, he brushed it off by saying it's his job and that it would be annoying if clothes bought at the store were coordinated strangely.
  • Walk on and on reveals that he and An make the songs that Vivid BAD SQUAD performs at their events, with the development process being either one coming up with an idea for a song, making a demo, and then meeting up while the creation of the demo is in progress to discuss what should be added or changed. He taught himself how to make music after watching RAD WEEKEND, believing that learning to make music will further show that he was serious about surpassing the event.
  • Akito is shown to be fairly good at handling children such as in the Vivid BAD SQUAD 1st-anniversary voice drama, as well as in The Gentleman Thief's Thrilling White Day!?.
• Humble Hero: Similarly to An, he's quite well-known in the street music community but doesn't make a big deal out of it whenever it's brought up to him.
• Hypocrite: In Singing in Sync, he chews An out for being protective of Kohane, as he equated it to a lack of trust in her partner and believed that it would stunt Kohane's growth as a singer. When asked by Toya if he ever felt protective of him, Akito outright denies this because he believes he has faith in Toya's ability to stand on his own and only wants to catch up to him. As we find out in the follow-up stories, however, Akito is also very protective of Toya in other ways, especially when Tsukasa and Rui are involved. An even jokingly calls him out on this in Same Dreams, Same Colors.
• Hypocritical Humor: Calls An out on how often she brings up Kohane in an area conversation when he mentions Toya just as often.

  An: Did I tell you what Kohane did the other day?

  Akito: Not that I really care, but did you know you're always talking about Kohane?

  An: Am I? Well, all you ever talk about is Toya, so I guess we're even.

  Akito: *surprised* ...Do I really?

• Informed Flaw: A big part of Akito's characterization and his story arc is how he supposedly lacks inherent talent as a vocalist and performer and has to work harder than his other team members to catch up to them. In reality, his voice actor Fumiya Imai is widely considered one of the better male vocalists in the game who has notably improved since the early game commissioned songs and SEKAI covers. As well, at least in 3DMV, there isn't any indication that Akito lacks presence as a performer, as he generally performs on the same level as An and tends to have more energy and finesse than Toya and Kohane.
• Insult Friendly Fire: Frequently vented his frustrations about people with a half-hearted resolve in the unit story and the side stories, being unaware that Toya felt as if he himself had a half-hearted resolve and was considering leaving Akito over it so that Akito could find a more motivated partner.
• Irony: Akito has canine Animal Motifs (more specifically, with wolves), but Akito is afraid of canine animals.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his Bitch in Sheep's Clothing tendencies, he's shown time and time again that he's not all bad:
  • In the unit story, he openly disapproved of Kotaro sabotaging Vivids so that BAD DOGS can win and takes the fall for his friend, even if it meant landing him on Vivids' bad side for a time.
  • He's surprisingly kind to Rin and Len at times, almost acting like a Cool Big Bro to them when he drops his facade of indifference.
    • In one of Rin's card side stories, he allows her and Len to watch his group's performance from backstage, on the condition that they remain quiet.
    • In an Area Conversation, despite his bad experience with soccer, he teaches Len how to do pull-ups.
    • In Miku's 2☆ side story, he worries about whether Len made up with his partner or not, but is embarrassed when Toya bluntly points out that he's still thinking about it.
  • His interactions with Toya show that he can be kind and caring when he wants to be:
    • It's established early on that Toya is a sort of Morality Pet to him, as he's probably the only non-adult character that Akito was introduced as being nice to from the beginning without the need of putting on a facade of kindness for other people.
    • Akito sticks by Toya despite his father's opposition to their friendship, even wanting to help him get through to his father, but standing back and simply offering advice when he realized that it's something Toya needs to do on his own to grow. According to Nocturne Interlude, he's even confronted Toya's father himself at one point when he talked smack about their music.
    • When it comes to how other people interact with Toya, he's fairly protective of him, especially, but not exclusively, where Tsukasa and Rui are involved due to the wariness of the influence they have on him.
    • In close game/OFFLINE, he angrily confronts the opposing team on their attempt to sabotage Toya's game so that the odds of winning would be in their favor, only backing off when Toya gently reassures him that he's fine.
    • He also doesn't allow others to take advantage of Toya's kindness, as Kotaro and Arata learn in Toya's "An Honest Stomach" side story.
  • He genuinely cares about the well-being and growth of the members of his unit, even if he isn't too keen on admitting it.
    • Bout for Beside You has Akito notice An's conflicted feelings towards Kohane's growth and helps her reason through it, as he remembers himself being in her shoes during the early days of his partnership with Toya.
    • After he begins to acknowledge her resolve to improve, Akito takes on an older brotherly role to Kohane and encourages her when she doubts herself. He also shows signs of being proud of her growth, such as in Kohane's "Emu Style? The Art of Dancing!" side story where An and Toya point out that he had a smug look on his face while watching her perform as if to say "She's one of us".^note Expression was described as a "doya-kao", which is a triumphant face someone makes made after a win or something epic
  • He cares about his sister Ena despite all of their bickering and hostility toward each other.
    • After seeing Ena trash all of her art supplies in the event Insatiable Pale Color, he asks her if she's serious about giving up on art, as he knows how important it is to her. Later in the story, he confronts their father on what he said to her, urging him to be gentler when giving Ena advice.
    • In Ena's Side Story "Hermit Searcher", after watching how passionately Ena talks about Mizuki, he tells her to take good care of them as she hadn't had a good friend since Airi Momoi and wishes her luck before walking off.
    • While he openly hates being treated like an errand boy, he does begrudgingly take care of Ena.
  • He also has looked out for other non-teammates:
    • While he still openly has a dislike for Rui and Tsukasa, in the second-anniversary event story At This Festival Tinged With Twilight he helps out an injured Rui over to the medical tent while asking nothing in return because he was worried that Rui's injury might jeopardize Wonderlands x Showtime's performance. He also delivers Rui's words of reassurance to Tsukasa and Nene and in Rui's "The Words Thrown at Me" side story, gives him ice for his arm when Rui tries to downplay help from his team members.
    • It was implied fairly early on that Akito is somewhat aware of Mizuki's reputation at their school. However, he doesn't engage in bullying them or bring it up to them in any of their interactions, instead treating them like any other student Kamiyama schoolmate that mildly annoys him.
    • In Mizuki's "I’ll Go and Ask Otouto-kun Too~!" side story, while initially annoyed at them bothering him during his lunch/naptime, he gives his sandwich to Mizuki after seeing that they won't have time to grab lunch for themself once they're dragged off to the meeting for make-up classes.
• Jerkass at Your Discretion: Tends to keep up his "Nice Guy" act until the people he's being fake-nice around are out of earshot. Exemplified in Someday, This Wish Will Transcend the Morning Sky when Mafuyu stays over at his house for the night because of Ena's invitation. He tries to keep up the front throughout the night, but his continuous clashes with Ena cause the mask to slip several times, especially during dinner. He drops the mask entirely when Mafuyu heads off to take a bath, dunking on Ena one last time before heading to his room for the rest of the night. Ena even comments on his (And Mafuyu's) ability to keep up appearances around strangers.

  Ena: (Geez, you two are such good people on the outside...)

• Jerkass Has a Point: While Akito tends to be unnecessarily harsh about making points, to the point where even Toya feels the need to step in and tell him to back off, he is right more often than not. For example, in Singing in Sync, An's inability to view Kohane as her equal rather than someone that needed to be protected and guided was detrimental to their budding partnership and to Kohane's growth.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": He's a talented street musician that looks up to Ken Shiraishi, An's father and a former member of RadDER, the group that created RAD WEEKEND. It was Ken's advice that motivated Akito to continue pursuing street music after being humiliated at his first CRAWL GREEN performance. As well, Akito cries when Taiga tells him that he reminds him of Ken back when they were still partners because it made him realize that Ken also struggled to find his "song", rather than being born with it.
• Last-Name Basis: He refers to characters he isn't particularly close to by their last names, such as Airi, Mafuyu, Shizuku, and Mizuki. In Mizuki's case, they're the only character that's referred to by their last name without an honorific attached to it due to their more casual "not quite friends but not complete strangers" relationship.
• The Leader:
  • He's assumed a leadership position in his subunit BAD DOGS due to Toya being the quieter of the two, though he still regards Toya as his equal and doesn't make decisions for their team without checking in with him first.
  • He also acts as a sort of pseudo-leader to Vivid BAD SQUAD in the absence of one and is the one the characters defer to when decisions regarding the group need to be made due to his status as The Reliable One. In a side story, An and Kohane discuss everything he's done for the team thus far.
• Manly Tears: Has been shown to cry as far back as the 2DMV for "Cinema". However, his tears become plot-relevant in Find A Way Out:
  • He first cries in a flashback after being humiliated at CRAWL GREEN and was close to giving up before Ken spoke to him.
  • He cries in the present in chapter 7 of the event after Taiga says that he sees Ken in him, and Akito realizes that Ken also struggled to find his song rather than being born with it. This time, they're Tears of Joy, and his expression is the subject of his untrained◊.
  • In his "The Reason for the Words Given to Me" side story, Ena says she noticed Akito used to cry a lot back then, frustratedly scrubbing the tears away so the corner of his eyes turned red, though she never said anything because of his scary expression. Akito denies that he was crying, and later says she was the one he didn't want to notice him crying the most. However, he was thankful that Toya and the others didn't notice his red eyes.
• Mature Younger Sibling: He begrudgingly looks after his sister, Ena, despite being the younger of the two. Airi notably says that she tends to forget which one of them is older due to this dynamic and commends Akito for being a good younger brother to Ena. Mafuyu also seems to hold this opinion of him after their brief interactions.
• Mirror Character: To his sister Ena, they are both incredibly similar in both personalities and preferences:
  • Both have a Sweet Tooth and share the same Trademark Favorite Food Pancakes and Cheesecakes, while also having the same disliked food, Carrots.
  • They have the same temperament, both being quick to irritation, quite stubborn in more ways than one, and are Tsundere.
  • They both share the same feelings of inferiority and are both repeatedly told that they are talentless in their respective fields, but cope with it in different ways. Ena is what Akito would have become if he bottled up his feelings of inferiority and became The Resenter instead of focusing on improving. Their initial character focus event stories Stray Bad Dog and Insatiable Pale Color also mirror each other as they both have to deal with their perceived lack of talent and withdraw from others as a result. Both events conclude with them having to accept that they aren’t alone and have friends to support them.
  • They both also have a Morality Pet from their unit that acts like a Blue Oni to their Red Oni, and whom they treat more kindly than anyone else. For Akito, it's Toya, while for Ena, it's Kanade. These characters also helped to restore their determination to follow the paths they chose for music and art, respectively.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Doesn't look any more physically fit than the other male characters in the cast and yet is able to carry Tsukasa on his back and run at full speed, unhindered in Heat Up! Kamiyama High Cheering Squad!, easily passing Mizuki who was only carrying a ribbon. Exaggerated, but justified, as while his physical appearance doesn't change, he does regularly go on runs to keep his body in shape and is physically active in general. His trained art and other official art occasionally take more care to show off his muscles.
• Never Gets Fat: He has a big Sweet Tooth and is mentioned to eat sweets quite often, usually in the form of his Trademark Favorite Food, pancakes. However, while the possibility of gaining weight exists in-universe, such as when he mentions Ena complaining about weight gain after excessively eating sweets, he is stated to routinely go on runs in the morning and does meal prep. He also helps out in various sports clubs after school, meaning he regularly gets his exercise in.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Not nearly as much as An with Kohane, but he will occasionally disregard Toya's space to hug or playfully tease him. There have also been numerous pieces of official art in which he's leaning against Toya's shoulder.
• Odd Friendship: With his partner Toya. The two are like day and night in terms of personality and interests, yet somehow have a strong, lasting bond with each other.
• Old Shame: In-Universe example. While he's since moved on to focus on his street musician activities, he's still quite sore about having lost the deciding soccer match in elementary school.
• Only Sane Man: Whenever Akito interacts with other Kamiyama High School students — specifically Rui and Tsukasa — he takes this role, always commenting on how strange the others are. By his "Happy Birthday!! 2022" side story, this has extended to all of the Wonderlands x Showtime members, including Nene, who is too nervous to act normally around him despite being the only sane one of her group in other scenarios.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He becomes uncharacteristically dejected after he and Toya break off their partnership in the unit story, which An and Kohane take note of and investigate further.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: After witnessing how well An and Kohane work together, Toya breaks off his partnership with Akito in the unit story in hopes that he will find someone with the drive and talent to match him. They reconcile their partnership before the end of the main story after Akito gives him a passionate and reassuring speech.
• Poor Communication Kills: A big part of the reason why his partnership with Toya almost fell through in the main story. Akito openly looked down on people he believed had a half-hearted resolve and verbalized his complaints about them to Toya, oblivious that he was adding to Toya's building insecurities about how he was contributing to their partnership. After watching An and Kohane perform together, this was all the motivation Toya needed to break off his partnership with Akito in hopes that Akito would find someone better than him, which is the exact opposite of what Akito wanted and left him sad and confused about what he did wrong.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: While not as blatant as An and Kohane (and just barely not as), he has this sort of dynamic with Toya. Being partners, they're extremely close to one another and spend the majority of the day together, even in school, where Akito visits Toya's classroom so often that Toya forgets they're in different classes according to an official character Q&A. As a cherry on top of their extensive list of Ship Tease interactions, Toya gives Akito a speech about how he's the best partner in Walk on and on and says that he wants to spend the rest of his life with him, shoulder to shoulder as partners.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He's very interested in fashion and used to work part-time at a clothing store to see the new products first. According to Toya, Akito picks out his clothing for events. He has also helped coordinate an outfit for Kohane and Mizuki.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Drags Kohane through the mud in the Vivid BAD SQUAD unit story due to his belief that she wasn't taking her venture into street music as seriously as she should have. This spurs Kohane to change her attitude and give herself a makeover.
  • He delivers a harsh one to An in Singing in Sync due to her inability to look at Kohane as her equal rather than someone that needs to be guided.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Toya's blue. Akito is passionate, driven, and more easily worked up than Toya.
• The Reliable One: As the pseudo-leader of Vivid BAD SQUAD, he's the one primarily deciding on practice times, giving permission to the other characters to cut practice times short to focus on other things, deciding on venues where they will perform, providing music for the group to perform at events (with the help of An), among other things. He also gives advice to the other members and looks out for their well-being. It's because of this role that the other members of the unit defer to him when major decisions regarding the group need to be made and go along with things when given the "O.K." by him.
• Screen Name: As of close game/OFFLINE, when playing arcade games as a team with Toya, they use the team name "Willow and Clouds"^note "Yanagi to Kumo", which was taken from the second kanji in their last names.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The manly-man to Toya's sensitive guy. He has rougher speech, is hot-tempered, and is passionate, compared to Toya who is soft-spoken and passive. He's also more conscious about things that would be perceived as "unmanly" by others, such as going to an amusement park as a teenage boy or carrying a stuffed animal around the school.
• Serious Business:
  • He initially looks down on Vivids because he thinks they're not serious enough about music to surpass a legendary event like RAD WEEKEND, especially with Kohane's Shrinking Violet tendencies and lack of musical experience.
  • He takes the idea of partnerships and viewing your partner as your equal more seriously than anyone else in the group, which drives him to confront An on her unconscious looking down on Kohane in Singing in Sync.
  • According to the official fanbooks relationship chart, An acknowledges that he's more serious about his dreams and music than anyone else.
• Shared Family Quirks: Despite their vitriolic relationship, he has a few shared traits with his sister, Ena. Both are Tsundere towards their respective groups, prone to having Hair Trigger Tempers at specific things (Mostly art for Ena and others not having enough drive for Akito), and sharing the same favorite and least favorite foods.
• Ship Tease: With Toya. As a designated duo in Vivid BAD SQUAD that is working together under the name of BAD DOGS, they have a solid bond and are practically inseparable. The pair gets so much of this that they supply the bulk of the games male Homoerotic Subtext, as described on the page.
• Significant Birth Date: His birthday is November 12th. His and Toya’s character numbers are 11 and 12 respectively.
• Sore Loser: He takes losses harder than the rest of the group and tends to dwell on them. According to a Kizuna title, this trait is so prominent that it manifested as a trait for his SEKAI's Miku.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: He checks off several boxes that many would expect in a Shōnen protagonist:
  • He's all but stated to be the leader of Vivid BAD SQUAD due to him being the main one guiding the group toward the goal and the one his team members defer to when making decisions, big or small.
  • He is associated with Orange.
  • While he's garnered a reputation due to his hard work as BAD DOGS, he's regarded as a weak link to his musically gifted partner, Toya, and eventually becomes one to Vivid BAD SQUAD as a whole by STRAY BAD DOG.
  • His main goal is To Be a Master, or in this case, go beyond RAD WEEKEND, the event the group as a whole is aspiring to surpass.
  • He's either book dumb or simply unmotivated to try his best intellectually, though most likely the latter, as Toya believes that he could get better grades if he tried.
  • He's determined to achieve his goal of surpassing RAD WEEKEND despite being told that he's untalented or unworthy even before the unit story occurred. As a result, he subjects himself to Training from Hell to catch up to his team members until they intervene.
  • He's very quick to anger and tends to be moody toward people after getting to know them.
  • In STRAY BAD DOG he gains a Stock Shōnen Rival in Arata Tono, who by THE POWER OF UNITY is redeemed through The Power of Friendship after coming to an understanding with him and Toya and becomes an ally to Vivid BAD SQUAD as a whole in their efforts to surpass RAD WEEKEND.
  • Akito himself learns the power of friendship in STRAY BAD DOG after realizing that he doesn't have to rush toward his dreams alone as long as he has his partner and the team supporting him.
  • According to his "Happy Birthday!! 2022" side story, he's a Big Eater, a common Shōnen protagonist trait.
  • Even more on the nose, his first unit song is about him overcoming his struggles and becoming the protagonist of his story.
• Street Smart: To make up for his academic failings. It helps that he's spent a lot of time on Vivid Street.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Inverted Trope. He looks nothing like his sister Ena and the only physical trait he has in common with his father is their Tareme Eyes. His mother is never shown onscreen making it quite possible that he inherited his bright orange hair and olive-colored eyes from her.
• Sweet Tooth: He loves sweets and becomes uncharacteristically happy when he gets them.
• Tareme Eyes: In contrast to Toya's sharp eyes, his eyes droop at the edges.
• Team Dad: He becomes a sort of one to the rest of Vivid BAD SQUAD due to his leadership qualities, as he looks out for the well-being of the members of his unit. He could also be considered the Team Mom when he’s not being so strict.

  Akito: Oi, you guys, don't forget we're going by train or bus. There's only so much you can take with you.

  An: Got it, mom~!

  Akito: Who are you calling mom...

• Those Two Guys: With his partner, Toya. In one Area Conversation, An says that Akito and Toya are a set. As well, a majority of his cards feature Toya as a cameo character.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Pancakes and cheesecake, like his sister Ena. According to an official Q&A if he had to choose which one he liked more, it would be pancakes.
• Training from Hell: Downplayed Trope, but he tends to subject himself to this as he's always training his body and singing so that he can eventually be on par with the other members of his group. While he's gotten better about pushing himself over time, his tendency to keep to a strenuous workout schedule surprises even his other teammates, especially when they find out that he goes out for runs at 4:00AM.
• Tsundere: Similarly to Ena, he has moments where he's sour to some characters and sweet to others, with Toya being the only person he's consistently "deredere" around.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He lacks the raw talent that the other members of his team have, but he makes up for it by being a strong and confident singer, which has earned him a reputation in the street music community.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: In Find A Way Out, Akito challenges a senior musician that humiliated him in middle school to an impromptu singing battle and wins. However, he only feels confident in his victory for a moment before remembering that he still has a long way to go to match his teammates. It takes Taiga sitting him down and reassuring him that Ken, his idol, had also struggled to get to the point where he can sing so well for Akito to feel accomplished in everything he had done and relax a little.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • With An. On top of their friendly rivalry, they tend to bicker almost as often as Akito does with Ena, but it's just another sign of how close they've become as friends since Vivid BAD SQUAD was formed.
  • He also has a quite vitriolic relationship with Kotaro, who on occasion has appeared to be afraid of him.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: His 1☆ story shows he's very uncomfortable around dogs, due to getting bitten by one in the past. His fear of dogs is a plot point in the Rise as ONE! event, where he has to train a dog for a competition because the owner gets injured. While at the end of the event, he's still uncomfortable around dogs, he warms up to the one he had to train and is able to pet him.
• You Are Not Alone: A big part of Akito's character arc is learning to not rush into things on his own, because he has teammates and eventually, friends, to fall back on.
• You Never Did That for Me:
  • In an early Area Conversation with Toya and Kohane, he gets annoyed after hearing that Kohane and An get special WEEKEND GARAGE early practice privileges solely because An is Ken's daughter.
  • In his "The Loud Cheering Full of Excitement" side story, Akito gets annoyed that Ena treated Toya to cookies for helping her but doesn't do anything for him despite how often she makes him run errands for her. Ena misinterprets this as him wanting to be treated to a snack from the festival.

Toya Aoyagi

I want to see views I've never seen before with my own eyes.

^{Debut Appearance} If there's anyone here who's half-baked, it's me...

^{Childhood Appearance}

Voiced by: Kent Itou (teen), Emi Hirayama (child)

Birthday: May 25 (Gemini)

School: Kamiyama High School

Year: 1st (until 3rd anniversary), 2nd (present)

Hobbies: Reading

Unique Skill: Piano, violin

Favorite Food: Coffee, cookies

Disliked Food: Squid

Bad with: Heights

Toya is the cool, silent type. His father strictly brought him up on classical music. Even though he had been educated on music ever since he was very young, Toya's sharp disdain towards his father was what led him to the music life on the street.

---

• The Ace: Aside from singing and studying, he also excels at crane and puzzle games, which he plays at the arcade.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: His area conversation chibi sprite flips his hair colors depending on which way he faces.
• Ambiguous Situation: The alternate Shibuya scenario from April Fools' Day 2022 brings up the question of whether Toya will ever have his Moment of Weakness and break up with Akito, as An and Kohane never become partners in that universe and therefore are never around to exacerbate Toya's insecurities about his partnership. As far as the players are shown, Toya and Akito don't appear to be having any issues, save for Akito being annoyed that he was roped into working together with Tsukasa and Rui because of his protectiveness of Toya. As well, it's explicitly stated that Toya and Akito are still working together as BAD DOGS.
• Ambiguously Gay: Toya leans a little less on the "ambiguous" side of this trope than his partner Akito does due to his openly affectionate nature toward Akito and the importance he places on viewing Akito as an important person in his life. While he's depicted as nicer to girls than Akito is, there is never an implication that he's nice to them out of interest due to his innocent (and oblivious) Nice Guy characterization compared to Akito, who is, in general, more crotchety toward everyone when he isn't pretending. As well, his partnership with Akito is played up in the story, to the point where a majority of the game's male-side Homoerotic Subtext comes from their eyebrow-raising interactions. That said, nothing is made concrete. His Ho Yay-laden Birthday 4koma with Akito is a good example of the ambiguity of their relationship◊.
• Animal Motifs: Pandas, to match his two-toned hair and laid-back personality. In Akito's "Together With the Plushies" side story, it's also the animal he picks in the Anime-themed shooter game "Gunslinger Jungle" that he plays with Akito in the arcade.
• Athletically Challenged: In stark contrast to Akito, who is often called upon by school clubs due to his prowess in various sports, he proves himself to be extremely bad at physical activities, especially ball tossing. A few of his side stories give a little insight into why; his mother forbade him from participating in physical activities like sports clubs when he was young for fear that an injury might prevent him from continuing to practice classical music.
• Bad Liar: He's very honest by nature, and in Walk on and on, his teammates were not convinced by him claiming he just had things to do when, in secret, he was receiving advice from Souma on composing music. In the main story, Akito only fell for his lie because he had never known Toya to joke around beforehand.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: So much so that even Mafuyu acknowledged it after witnessing his performance in The Sounds of a Summer Festival!. Mizuki describes his singing voice as "pure".
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason he's so indebted to Tsukasa, who would play with him when they were children to distract him from his cold home life. Tsukasa was also the one that encouraged him to do what he wants, leading him to pursue street music and eventually meet his best friend, Akito. It is also why he's so loyal to Akito, as Akito "found" him and gave him the dream of wanting to surpass RAD WEEKEND when he had nothing else to aspire to.
• Berserk Button: He's usually the calmest member of the group, but he gets angry at Akito and An (mainly Akito) for less-than-average grades and a lack of desire to study. He also gets annoyed at Kohane for being too nice to An about her grades.
• Big Brother Worship: They're not biologically related, but Toya deeply admires Tsukasa as an older brother figure and is Easily Impressed with everything he does.
  • This isn't the case with his real brothers, as he explains in his "A Bond Between Siblings" side story that he doesn't have much of a relationship with them due to their differences in age and the fact that they went abroad to study when he was young, leaving him with few memories of them behaving like siblings.
• Black Sheep: The only member of his family to not pursue classical music despite being raised into it, something his father resents him for.
• Bookworm: He's an avid reader and joined the library committee so that he can be closer to books.
• Boy Band: In the alternate version of Shibuya introduced in the April Fools' Day 2022 event, he and Akito team up with Tsukasa and Rui to form the "backstreet entertainer" group FANTASISTA SQUAD, which combined elements of street singing and stage play production into their performances.
• Brainy Brunette: Half of his hair is black and he's noted for getting good grades and encouraging others (mainly Akito) to take their studies seriously.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: This is what he thought he was doing for Akito in the main story, as he broke off their partnership in hopes that Akito would find someone to achieve his dream with that wouldn't hold him back with a half-hearted resolve. Thankfully, Akito was able to bring him back to his side toward the end.
• Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Briefly breaks off his friendship and partnership with Akito in the unit story after coming to the conclusion that Akito would be better off working with someone else. They end up reconciling after Akito gives him a passionate speech that reassures Toya about his importance to him.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Butts heads with his stubborn father several times in the event story Nocturne Interlude over his desire to perform as a street musician rather than returning to classical music like his father wants him to. After getting advice from his friends, he manages to get through to his father just a little after giving him a passionate speech about their shared love for music and invites him to watch him perform with his team.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: He's prone to exposing Akito's hidden feelings and good deeds to other characters, much to Akito's annoyance.
• Can't Catch Up: One of his biggest concerns is that he isn't contributing to the team enough, leading to a fear that he will one day be left behind by them as The Load. In Walk on and on, this prompts him to utilize his history with composing music to secretly work on a track for Vivid BAD SQUAD to perform to lessen the workload placed on Akito and An, both of whom are usually the ones in charge of providing the group's music.
• Chick Magnet: Played for Laughs in Petit SEKAI when he and Akito begin helping out An and Kohane at WEEKEND GARAGE in Ken's absence and their presence as the staff there ends up attracting hordes of female customers.
• Childhood Friends:
  • With Tsukasa. Tsukasa's mother was his piano teacher, which gave them opportunities to play together as kids.
  • He's also Childhood Friends with Saki due to her being Tsukasa's younger sister. And while it's implied that they aren't as close as he is to Tsukasa, his flashbacks during the event Never Give Up Cooking! make it clear that he still values the time he spent with her as kids.
  • He's also this with Akito, as they met in middle school and have been practically inseparable from each other ever since.
  • Downplayed in the case of An; while they also met in middle school, they didn't become friends until after the main story, over two years after their first meeting.
• Cloudcuckoolander: An air-head that takes nearly everything said to him at face value and is impressed by mundane things due to his sheltered upbringing. Toya is also generally less conscious about things that would be seen as "unmanly" like going to an amusement park as a high schooler along with another male friend or carrying around an enormous stuffed animal at school despite the looks it garnered him from the other students. He also lines up at an eat-in to buy cookies for White Day despite the store otherwise being populated by women, oblivious to the implications even when Akito points out how strange it was that he was let in.

  An: Ahaha. Toya doesn't care too about that sort of thing, does he?

• The Comically Serious: His diligent nature leads him to take everything seriously. In a side story for his 1* card, he was unaware of the attention he attracted by carrying a plushie he won from the arcade around at school. He also regards Tsukasa and Rui with sincere respect and admiration, despite their reputation as weirdos.
• Commonality Connection: While they were already acquainted on account of being in the same class, he becomes closer with Nene as of close game/OFFLINE due to their shared interest in arcade games, which they found out about each other after participating in an arcade tournament. Nene even begins to think of him as a "game friend".
• Cool Big Bro: He acts like a big brother to Len despite the two not being biologically related.
• Curbstomp Battle: In the VBS episode of SEKAI's Game Season, he reluctantly decides to go a round at Puyo Puyo at everyone else's insistence. The resulting matches against An and Akito aren't even remotely close as he regularly builds chains massive enough to bury his opponents several times over.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Emotionally neglected by his family and kept from having a normal childhood due to his parents forcing him to practice music in all of his free time. At present, he has a troubled relationship with classical music and is gradually learning to reconcile his love for it and the past trauma that has prevented him from being able to enjoy it.
• Defrosting Ice King: He starts as very much The Stoic, but following Nocturne Interlude, where he makes his resolve to his father clear, Toya gradually becomes more relaxed and expressive with his emotions. By Same Dreams, Same Colors, the stoic aspect of his personality is almost completely gone, as he's shown to smile more openly.
  • The main story flashback that takes place during their initial meeting shows that he was more hostile and guarded when interacting with Akito. He's seemingly mellowed out by the main story, which takes place 2 years after they met, and follows Akito's lead more often.
• Ditzy Genius: As intelligent as he is, he can be pretty absent-minded, and takes everything said to him at face value. It's implied that KAITO got this trait from him.
• Does Not Like Spam: He says that he finds the smell of sweet chocolates nauseating in his 2022 Valentine's comment. In The Gentleman Thief's Thrilling White Day!?, Akito tells Mizuki that Toya is not a fan of sweets in general. Cookies seem to be the exception, as they are listed as his favorite food.
• Education Mama: Acts like one to Akito despite being his peer, which is Played for Laughs.
• Elegant Classical Musician: Trained in playing the piano and violin since he was a child.
• Family of Choice: Has a familial relationship with Tsukasa Tenma, who regards him as a younger brother and who he in turn appears to worship as an older brother.
• Fan of the Underdog: He's one of the few characters in the main cast to show any sort of respect and admiration for Tsukasa. He also respects KAITO and says he has much to learn from him. In both cases, Akito disapproves and advises him to learn from KAITO "in moderation".
• First-Name Basis: With his long-time friends^note Akito, Tsukasa, Saki, Souma, and Ena. He also refers to Ken Shiraishi by his first name. Akito is the only one of those characters whose name he doesn't use an honorific, as he uses "-san" for Saki, Ken, Souma, and Ena, and "-senpai" for Tsukasa.
• Foil: To Mafuyu from Nightcord at 25:00.
  • Both characters have given names with the kanji for "Winter", which also reflects their outward temperaments. However, Toya only has the outward appearance of being stoic and he isn't actually, only having difficulty showing his emotions clearly on his face. On Mafuyu's side, she is an emotionless girl who is learning to feel again after losing her sense of self.
  • Both characters ended up being quite detached from others due to their upbringing. However, Toya had found good friends in Akito, Tsukasa, and Saki long before the unit story took place. In Mafuyu's case, she didn't have any genuine friends until she allowed the members of N25 into her heart, which took more time.
  • Toya and Mafuyu both have controlling parents who rejected their children pursuing anything other than the paths they had set for them. However, Toya successfully rebelled against his parents two years prior to the unit story and found his freedom in singing with Akito. As well, he was also able to convince his father to allow him to continue singing street music in the event story Nocturne Interlude. On Mafuyu's end, she allowed her parents to have control over every aspect of her life, eventually losing herself in the process and having to gradually relearn how to feel again over the course of the N25 storyline. In that way, Mafuyu is likely what Toya could have become had he not rebelled.
  • Both characters are in a group with a Shinonome sibling, who they have known for two years by the point of the unit story. Despite this, their relationships with them are quite different. Toya and Akito are extremely close, and Toya plays the role of a Morality Pet to him. On Mafuyu's side, there's one-sided hostility towards her from Ena's end, as Ena believes Mafuyu looks down on her. Mafuyu in turn is different toward her, and their relationship takes time to develop into a healthier dynamic.
• Forgot I Couldn't Swim: In Same Dreams, Same Colors, he climbs a tree in the spur of the moment to find a star that could guide the group back to the campsite after their GPS' lost signal. It's not until Akito reminds him that he's afraid of heights that he starts to panic and has to be coaxed down by the others.
• Free-Range Children: Initially downplayed compared to the rest of the group, as he was the only one shown to be scolded onscreen for his late-night adventures to live houses. After Nocturne Interlude, this trope is in full force now that his father has eased up on him.
• Friendless Background: Due to his father's strict upbringing, Toya never had the opportunity to make friends before meeting Akito, as his father expected him to spend all his free time practicing music. The only friends he had growing up were Tsukasa and Saki, and they were only well acquainted because Tsukasa's mother was Toya's piano teacher.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: As of the game's 1.5 anniversary, of the members of Vivid BAD SQUAD, his relationship with An is the least defined. After the main story, while they do interact with each other, up until Same Dreams, Same Colors the pair hadn't interacted in a truly meaningful way, nor do they have a dynamic in the same way Toya does with Akito or Kohane.
• Generation Xerox: Defied Trope. His father is a famous classical musician and raised Toya up to become one as well, but Toya ran away from it to find his dream instead.
• Gentle Giant: The second tallest character in the main cast after Rui and an all-around Nice Guy.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Inverted Trope. As Toya has half-black, half-pale blue hair that reflects his calm temperament, contrasting Akito's vibrant orange hair that matches his passionate personality.
• Height Angst: While he doesn't make a big deal out of it most of the time, he reminds An, who is sad about her shortness, that being tall isn't all that great, as he often runs into train handles because of his height.
• Held Gaze: With Akito in the 3DMV for "Cinema".
• Hidden Depths: Walk on and on reveals that he has experience with composing music, which is described by the other characters as being "precise". He can also understand what feelings a person is meaning to convey with the music they make, and uses this to easily discern that Kohane was making a track to express her respect and gratitude toward An. He learned both of these things from his father after having them ingrained into his mind as a child.
• Humble Hero: Tied with Kohane for being the most humble member of the unit. While it's not that he lacks confidence in his skills, he's simply oblivious to his level of experience with street music and instead relates all of his current-day accomplishments to his history with classical music. He also believed himself to be an unsuitable partner for Akito, even though Akito had been quietly training himself to match or surpass him since they first met.
• Icy Gray Eyes: He has gray eyes to match his characterization as The Stoic.
• Implausible Hair Color: While they live in a World of Technicolor Hair, Toya stands out in the cast as half of his head is black while the other is light blue. None of the other characters ever comment on this, and it's confirmed to be natural as it's consistent with his childhood appearance. His father doesn't have multi-colored hair, making it possible that he inherited this from his unseen mother.
• Inconsistent Coloring: The color of his eyebrows is never consistent across official SEKAI media. In his cards, they appear to be black, but they are light blue in his 3DMV model. In official art, sometimes one of his eyebrows will be light blue while the other is black, matching his two-tone hair.
• Inseries Nickname: Several characters that are familiar with him through Akito have referred to him as "Partner-kun", such as Ena, Mizuki, and Akito's classmates. Justified in that Akito usually introduces new people to him by saying that he's his partner.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Toya is comfortable with feminine things such as sewing, carrying stuffed animals in public, owning his own stuffed animals, and entering a café for girls. The only time he gets uncomfortable with this is when he worries about getting in trouble with his dad. In the "Take the Best Shot!" event, he shows genuine curiosity about make-up and is very pleased when he's able to pull off applying some himself.
• Last-Name Basis: He refers to almost everyone by their last name except for his long-time friends Tsukasa, Saki, and Akito, Akito's sister Ena, and his mentor Ken Shiraishi.
• Lethal Chef: In Never Give Up Cooking!, it's shown that he is not good at baking, making bright blue and purple cupcakes that exploded in the oven◊. Rui thinks they look more toxic than sweet. However, he improves his cooking by the end of the event following a baking lesson from KAITO.
• Like a Duck Takes to Water: Compared to the other members of his group, he doesn't dwell too much on the existence of SEKAI when he finally ventures into it in the Vivid BAD SQUAD unit story.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Toya and Kohane were the only members of Vivid BAD SQUAD to not experience RAD WEEKEND, as they came into their partnerships with Akito and An respectively long after RaDders retired. It wasn't until The Legend Still Vivid that they would be taken to the place where RAD WEEKEND was performed and then get to see a recording of the performance, the next best thing to seeing it in person.
• Lonely Rich Kid: He is the son of a famous classical musician and prior to meeting Akito and by extension the rest of the Vivid BAD SQUAD, Toya was deeply lonely and isolated from others besides the Tenma family due being disallowed to do much outside of practicing the piano.
• Meaningful Name: "Toya" has the kanji for "Winter" in it and he had a quiet and distant outward personality toward those he was unfamiliar with, making it easy to perceive him as The Stoic before his character development.
• Moment of Weakness: After witnessing how well An and Kohane work together, He breaks off his partnership with Akito in the main story in hopes that he will find someone with the drive and talent to match him.
• Morality Pet: Prior to Akito's character development, and even after it to some extent, he's notably been the only character Akito is nearly consistently nicer to when he's not putting on a "nice guy" front for other characters. Toya has a sort of sway over him, as he has difficulty saying "no" to Toya even if he isn't interested in playing along with something Toya wants to do. There is also a protective aspect to their relationship from Akito's end, especially where Rui and Tsukasa are involved, and Akito doesn't allow others to take advantage of Toya's gentler personality without stepping in.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Gets like this about things like camping equipment and cutting a bell pepper in Same Dreams, Same Colors due to it being his first camping trip.
• Nice Guy: He's very considerate of his friends and acquaintances, often doing things with their best interests in mind. This aspect of his personality can come off as a bit of a detriment to him, as he tends to forget to think of himself when helping others. Exemplified by his 2022 birthday side story, where he spends his birthday sharing his mother's cookies with his friends and was about to give the last of them to the Virtual Singers before Akito quickly cuts in and points out he hadn't seen Toya eat any for himself.
• Odd Friendship: With his partner Akito. The two are like day and night in terms of personality and interests, something that is acknowledged in the story, yet the two have a strong, lasting bond with each other.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Drops his usual warmness toward Akito for a more blunt and cold attitude when it comes to Akito getting his grades up. Akito is notably more wary of him and compliant when he becomes like this.
  • This is played more seriously in the main story after he triggered the Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario between him and Akito. Since Toya isn't the joking type, Akito cannot fathom why Toya would suddenly break off their partnership without reason. After going to SEKAI, Akito learns through MEIKO that Toya is acting to ward him off.
• Perpetual Frowner: Prior to his Character Development, he would rarely smile unless he was performing or interacting with someone he was close to like Akito or Tsukasa.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: After witnessing how well An and Kohane work together right out the gate, He breaks off his partnership with Akito in the main story in hopes that he will find someone with the drive and talent to match him. They reconcile their partnership before the end of the main story.
• Poor Communication Kills: A big part of why his partnership with Akito almost fell through in the main story. Rather than discussing his insecurities about their partnership with Akito and working through them together, he took it upon himself to decide what Akito needed, breaking off their partnership in hopes that Akito would move on from him and find a more motivated partner.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: While not as blatant as An and Kohane (and just barely not as), he has this sort of dynamic with Akito. Being partners, they're extremely close to one another and spend the majority of the day together, even in school, where Akito visits Toya's classroom so often that Toya forgets they're in different classes according to an official character Q&A. As a cherry on top of their extensive list of Ship Tease interactions, Toya gives Akito a speech about how he's the best partner in Walk on and on and says that he wants to spend the rest of his life with him, shoulder to shoulder as partners.
• The Quiet One: Originally introduced as this trope, he would often sit back and let Akito do most of the talking.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Downplayed Trope. Toya isn't a fan of sweets and his Valentines 2022 voice line mention that he finds the taste of the sweeter variants of chocolate nauseating, but he otherwise doesn't outright dislike them to a point of hating them and one of his favorite foods are cookies.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Toya seems to have a fondness for stuffed animals, as he enjoys winning them and is implied to take them home when he's able to sneak them past his father. As well, a row of small plushies can be seen on the shelf in his bedroom.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Akito's red. In comparison to Akito, Toya is more cool and collected, and his emotions don't show very easily.
• Screen Name: He uses the screenname "ATVBS"^note "Aoyagi Toya - Vivid BAD SQUAD" when playing arcade games. When playing as a team with Akito, they use the team name "Willow and Clouds"^note "Yanagi to Kumo", which was taken from the second kanji in their last names.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Toya serves as the sensitive guy to Akito's manly man, especially after his Character Development. Not only is he more soft-spoken and often dwells on trivial things, but he's also less conscious about things that would be perceived as "unmanly", such as openly having an interest in stuffed animals or going to a female populated eat-in to buy cookies.
• Ship Tease: With Akito. As a designated duo in Vivid BAD SQUAD that is working together under the name of BAD DOGS, they have a solid bond and are practically inseparable. The pair gets so much of this that they supply the bulk of the games male Homoerotic Subtext, as described on the page.
• Shipper on Deck: Appears to be very supportive of Kohane and An's "partnership". He also isn't surprised when An declares that she's going on a date, easily guesses that it's with Kohane, and encourages her to have a good time.
• Soulless Bedroom: Downplayed as it's implied it's not by choice. Seeing as Toya wasn't allowed to do practically anything outside of classical music for most of his life, his room lacks many personal touches. The plushies on his wall and the covered upright piano are the biggest indicators of his personal touch.
• The Stoic: It's less that he's emotionless and more that his emotions don't show very well on his face, leading people to have trouble telling what he's thinking. After mostly resolving things with his father in Nocturne Interlude this aspect of him has begun to lessen and he becomes much more expressive with time.
• Super Gullible: Akito says there's no fun in trying to trick Toya for April Fools' Day because he knows Toya will take anything he says at face value, to which Toya replies that he'd never doubt what his partner says.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: The second tallest character in the main cast after Rui and fits the bill of being handsome.
• Those Two Guys: With his partner, Akito. An expresses surprise in an area conversation when she sees Toya by himself, to which Toya responds he's not always with Akito.
• Token Rich Student: Seemingly the only Kamiyama student that comes from a rich family, as his father is a famous classical musician. While Toya could have gotten into a prestigious school, he explains to An in an Area Conversation that he wanted to attend the same school as Akito and convinced his father to allow him to by leveraging his trust in Tsukasa's parents against him.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Cookies. While he's stated to not be fond of most sweets, cookies are an exception due to the sentimental value placed on them, as his mother makes them for him every year for his birthday.
  • He also likes coffee, which he's usually seen drinking if he has a beverage on hand.
• True Companions: With Tsukasa, who views him as a younger brother.
• Tsurime Eyes: Has sharp eyes in contrast to Akito's Tareme Eyes.
• Unknown Rival: The target of a one-sided rivalry with Akito, who acknowledged his skill and has been training to surpass him since the day they met. He appears to be oblivious to this, as he was worried about not being good enough to be Akito's partner himself.
• Vocal Evolution: While still remaining fairly soft-spoken, his voice has notably become more emotional with time.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He's terrified of heights to the point of being incapable of walking over pedestrian bridges.

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