I would love to know, HAPPY ELEMENTS. We should probably start with Ibuki, and go from there.

The great part about Ibuki's Final Ceremony chapter is that we can see exactly where his head's at. In the story, Ibuki leaves the 4piece Final Ceremony early after he sees that he hasn't been selected for the dream unit. He feels a little left out to dry, because he came from America to participate in 4piece expressly because Nice invited him to. When Keito comes to make his offer, Ibuki is equally as interested in performing with him.

When it comes to future direction, we have three certain possibilities: A) Ibuki joins AKATSUKI. B) Ibuki joins another unit. C) Ibuki becomes a solo idol. I have theories and explanations for two of them.

A) Ibuki joins AKATSUKI: ★★★☆☆ I'm not sure at all if this is going to be permanent, but I guess it's not as out of the realm of possibility as I initially thought.

The difference between Ibuki and the members of Esupuri is that he's had set up long before the Audition Arc: Submarine (2021) puts AKATSUKI and RYUSEITAI in Okinawa for SS, which sets the stage for Supervillain (2023) and Stella Maris (2024), which have references to him/Okinawa Oni directly. Read more about that here. Ibuki says that he's heard AKATSUKI music because he's from Okinawa.. So while it might seem out of nowhere, I really don't think it's out of the blue.

However, if he joins AKATSUKI in the center event they'll have in December, it's probably going to have to rely on either Souma or Kuro's arc. Keito has had two center events, and VS Audience + Final Ceremony is enough (in my opinion) to cement their relationship. The event will likely be about how Ibuki meshes with Kuro and Souma (which will be fun!!) but I don't know enough about their arcs to really theorize how either would tie into "Ibuki joins AKATSUKI" thematically.

B) Ibuki joins another unit: ★☆☆☆☆ This one makes the least sense to me personally, given that Esupuri's dynamics and theme seem pretty set (the unrequited square, etc.). They might as well have written him in there to begin with. And him joining another unit makes even less sense because he has no existing relationships there -- so if he's joining one, AKATSUKI would make the most sense.

C) Ibuki becomes a solo idol: ★★★★★ I personally think Ibuki will temporarily perform with AKATSUKI, before branching off in his own direction as a solo idol. Ibuki was left with no clear direction (in his POV, since he skipped the ceremony), and I think Keito's offer provides him with time to get back on his feet, get used to the area, and see what he wants to do as an idol. Being a solo idol would provide him with the flexibility to carve out his own vision: performing with AKATSUKI is just a safe space for him to discover what that vision is.

I saw one thread (pre-livestream) that predicted Esupuri would be in RhyLin because they were the only agency that didn't get anything new in !!-era. Now that Esupuri is a NEWDI unit, I feel that it's completely within the realm of possibility that Ibuki could be a RhyLin solo idol. He could still work closely with Keito and AKATSUKI, and they could be good mentors he can rely on. Additionally, with the RhyLin veteran situation, I can see Keito wanting to keep Ibuki in RhyLin to completely shake things up.

I'll be posting a much longer, more detailed response on Twitter, because this topic deserves lots of care and space to breathe, but at the end of the day, Rin "There's a 0.0000005% chance" Citrinesea has no more expectations for what they're going to do with Ibuki and AKATSUKI so I'm along for the ride with you guys until December, hehe.