Honestly given how old Imas is I'm seriously shocked at how little AS stuff got translated... it really feels as if this fandom just never... had a translation community dedicated to it??? (It's also SUPER weird to me how dead the fandom for it feels but fandom in general really is just moving away from appreciating oldschool content in favor of new shiny things... really I'd be happy to just talk about Imas1/2 forever if people would listen, and I did do this for a long time...) Like seriously, Chihaya's such a famous character when I saw how much untranslated content she had my jaw actually dropped. It's nice that there's translators for the other branches but in a way it kind of makes me even more upset because it just further highlights how little people seem to value AS content being translated, despite the fact it's the best, most nuanced content that will ever come out of this franchise imho. So trust me, as a translator myself I'm right there with you! I wouldn't say there's no chance I'll ever get to working on Imas1/2 stuff (at least for Chihaya), I just definitely want a break from translating for Imas for a while. I genuinely think Chihaya's going to haunt me for the rest of my life so there's definitely a chance I'll get a very very strong urge to return and tackle it, it's just a matter of time. When my inspiration strikes again, console game stuff is at the top of the list. Thank you for sending this though! It's genuinely really nice to hear that there's someone out there who's interested in that kind of content still :') I'd still be interested in talking about Imas stuff in here (especially AS/Julia/Shizuka and especially the writing) even if I don't go out of my way to tweet about for the foreseeable future

Thanks for letting me know! I'll go fix them. The reason the staff is whited out for Ether is it takes a while to find the song staff after songs come out so I just white it out until I can get to it (I always just make copies of prior documents for formatting sake), but I forgot to for this one.

Sakiko is the front and center of both of the promotional illustrations as well as the focus of both of the trailers we've gotten, so in a way I think that speaks for itself. The difference between Sakiko and Taki is that Sakiko is the one spinning the narrative, while Taki is living within Tomori's. Uika is also living in Sakiko's narrative and not the other way around. That said I wouldn't be shocked if the story was perhaps told from Uika's point of view and Sakiko was haunting her narrative so to speak, because this is what the stage plays in their concerts are like. Sakiko will always be the main character though; it's more comparable to RAS and how Chiyu takes priority over Rei when it comes to their narrative based stuff.

Tomori's not allowed to, I think Ave Mujica as a concept would fall apart if Soyo joined and Taki would not go where Tomori can't follow, so none of the Crychic kids. (Yes I'm overcomplicating this alfjhslfs) Between Raana and Anon, I'd say Raana thematically works better (that whole deal about wanting a place to breathe, and of course Ave Mujica's themes surround tearing the world down and building a new one in which the characters can live in comfortably) but Anon is probably the better pick in the sense of... well, to put this very simply, which of the two do you think would join a cult easier? Anon all day. In my head I'm just imagining something like what happened with Rika who was just curious about what Ave Mujica was about and then... that happened to her. Anon to me feels a bit impressionable in that same way. Honestly would also put a lot of spice into the mix if she met Tomori first; imagine Tomori makes a friend out of Anon and then Sakiko lures her into Ave Mujica and Anon doesn't come out of it the same way. It would make for some interesting drama.

Umiri's character could really go in any direction. In regards to how I think the characters will be developed I honestly don't really have an answer, because I think it's far more interesting to be surprised by how the show will do it than make up my own preconceptions of what they will do and be wrong. That's just me though! and I think it's fine if others do speculate. All of that said the way I read Timoris as applying to Umiri's character I think lies in how she 1. wants to be seen (she gets visibly hurt when Taki says she doesn't "need" her) and 2. that part of her that spectates and watches over a situation from the side, and isn't afraid (!) to get her hands dirty. She has that kind of quiet, firey passion that's almost scary.

Boy do I

I really adore her! I've always had this kind of special fondness for the really quiet reserved types, and I think Mutsumi is a compelling twist on this, especially in the context of Bandori (she feels totally different from, say, Rinko).

She's the kind of character who you just want to reach through the screen and hug, I remember the first time I watched It's MyGO I was just constantly thinking "I need Mutsumi to have a good day maaaaaan." I also like the gap to her that we saw from the karaoke scene, and that in many ways, she's truly the thing that bridges MyGO and Ave Mujica throughout the anime. Her dynamic with Sakiko is really interesting too; Umiri's line asking if Mutsumi truly wanted to go through with this kind of haunts me at night. ALSO THIS THING YUNIKO AYANA SAID ABOUT HER: "the Mutsumi line was the final nail in CRYCHIC’s coffin, and she said it because she didn’t want Sakiko to bear the burden of breaking up the band all on her own. Breaking up the band was Sakiko’s idea, but Mutsumi saying that dealt the final blow in ending things. Mutsumi will have to bear the burden of that sin."

I feel like I can't talk about Mutsumi without also talking about Mortis, so I'll also add here that Mortis' commentary from Quaerere Lumina was my favorite. She seems so lost and broken and the implication that she's aware that she's a doll but she wasn't put together right just hurts. I also really loved the moment where she "broke" Amoris' arm, and how unhinged Yuzumoon is on stage as her. Also her crying for joy when the world was destroyed and being jealous of it was just?????? OKAY. She has that kind of quiet but terrifying force to her (which also applies to Mutsumi off-stage, I feel). The ways in which she feels lost and clings to Sakiko/Oblivionis because she doesn't really have anywhere else to go drills in a lot for me in regards to why she was in Crychic in the first place.

In any case, I'm very excited to see her in the upcoming anime! Yuzumoon's been doing great work with her and I'm excited to hear the moments she's been hinting at for us.

Looking at it strictly narratively speaking for a second, a part of me doesn't read into why she was following her around too much because really the scene is Uika's biggest non-post-credits scene. They couldn't just leave it at the planetarium without following it up with something more.

I kind of interpret it as she used the seat issue to get Tomori to acknowledge her (since we all know she obviously knows how the seats work), which based on the fact she thinks about Crychic when they're sitting together, is probably because she recognized her as Sakiko's friend. She noticed something about Tomori seemed off so she kept an eye on her as she left. I don't read anything in this or in her conversation to her as malicious; while I know the series trusts us to read in between the gaps, I do think they would be more deliberate if they wanted us to leave that scene thinking "Uika is a freak."

As for the conversation itself, my interpretation of it is the "Even in the city, you can see the North Star... so I was surprised that I found it here" line is her indirectly pointing out that she found Sakiko again, but conveying this to Tomori through a star metaphor (because, well, immediately before this line is when Sakiko springs in her mind). From there Uika picking up Tomori's lyrics and reading them is likely to foreshadow that Uika herself writes lyrics: as pointed out by the director in an interview, the two of them approach writing lyrics very differently. Her commenting that singing helps get your feelings across I interpret is coming more from her own heart than it was advice for Tomori directly (she doesn't know Tomori at all, so how would she know how to console her?), but what works, works.

I think the most malicious I could read this scene might be that Uika only talked to Tomori because she's an acquaintance of Sakiko's, but even then she seemed very supportive of Tomori reaching out to whoever she meant to with her writing (and Uika knows about Crychic falling out), so I doubt there was hidden ill intent. That said I don't really believe there's a "wrong" way to interpret the Ave Mujica cast as we know them now (other than like, thinking Sakiko only does the things she does to torment people and/or she's apathetic to Tomori or whatever). So feel free to keep reading the scene how your gut tells you to.

Futatsu no Tsuki. I'm SO weak to imagery that uses being lured into creepy forests, and I feel like while the other Ave Mujica songs are more about their concept and can apply to everyone, this one in particular feels like a direct message from Doloris to Oblivionis (way more than Angles does tbh). I got chills when they performed it past 0th and Ricochi and Nontan were staring at each other for it...