Kanaena

"I was ready to just give up on everything, but you made that song for me, K... After listening to it, I felt a lot better and even decided to draw again."

- Ena in Carnation Recollection Episode 2 "Luka's Words"

Kanaena is the femslash ship between Kanade Yoisaki and Ena Shinonome from the Project SEKAI fandom.

Canon
Kanade is an online school student, and Ena is a second year night school student at Kamiyama High School. They are part of the same music circle, "Nightcord at 25:00", also known as Niigo or Nightcord. Ena is strong willed, but tends to be quite a bit nicer to Kanade than she is to others, and Kanade is the leader of Niigo who is rather reserved.

Kanade and Ena first met when Kanade invited Ena to be the illustrator for her music group, thinking highly of her art. Ena has always struggled with thinking that her art was not very good compared to others'.

Unsatisfied Pale Color
Angered by her father talking down on her, Ena begins to make a painting for an art competition. While out buying art supplies, she runs into Kanade, and tells her about the art contest. When Ena admits that she is worried, Kanade reassures her, telling her she likes her art. Later at her house, Ena thinks about what Kanade said and is happy she ran into her.

Later, despairing about not winning anything in the contest, Ena pulls up Niigo's comment section for reassurance on her art skills, only to find people saying her art style is peculiar, and talking to her father only makes her feel worse. In Niigo's voice chat, Ena lashes out at Mafuyu, accusing her of especially not understanding what she's going through and then leaving call to go to the Empty SEKAI, leaving Kanade and Mizuki confused on what happened.

While Ena is in the SEKAI she starts to understand why Mafuyu stayed there so much. Kanade talks in the chat about how Ena's art helps the group's music reach more people, saying that she isn't an accessory and helps them get more views. While the group is wondering where Ena went, Kanade comes up with SEKAI, where Mafuyu was before.

In the SEKAI, Ena again thinks about how Kanade said she liked her art. Rin starts to sing a song that Kanade just made for Ena, which attracts her over. Later, Miku tells Niigo to head over to the SEKAI, where Ena apologizes to everyone for making them worry. Ena tells Kanade the songs she makes are soothing to the point they make her heart ache. Kanade tells Ena she wants her to draw something for the song, but Ena says that she is scared because no matter how much she draws, she never gets recognition. Kanade and Mizuki comfort her, and Kanade tells her that if she needs someone to notice her art, she would be that person, and that she's essential for Niigo.

Fanon
Kanaena is not particularly popular within the fandom, though it does have a moderate amount of fans. Most Kanaena shippers enjoy Ena's kindness towards Kanade and Kanade's encouragement towards Ena and her art skills. It is a common headcanon with the shippers that Ena is in love with Kanade, and that she truly regards her as her savior due to the way she treats Kanade differently when compared to her other groupmates, often being the first one to defend her. Kanaena is rivaled by more popular such as Mizuena, Mafuena, and Kanamafu. Also, it is usually paired with the ship between Mizuki and Mafuyu, Mizumafu. Kanaena is also part of the poly ship for the entirety of Niigo, Polyniigo.

However many shippers were disappointed and even ended up dropping the ship due to the "And Now, I Wear This Ribbon" event retconning the story behind Niigo's formation, as well as their self-intros and some of their older card stories. Although the developers, Colorful Palette, tried to explain that "Kanade wasn't the first person to literally discover Ena's art, but the first person to actually see value in Ena's work and recognize her as a real artist" following the backlash created by the event story, it was met with mixed reactions. While many took this as a clarification that Kanaena is canon or were happy with the sudden development, many were also not convinced by it as most of the story focused on Mizuena. What also did not help was the fact that Colopale announced they were going to remake Niigo members' self-intros, changing previously stated lore, e.g that Kanade originally found Ena after seeing the latter draw art of Kanade's songs.

Kanaena week starts February 5th through February 12, 2024. The prompts for the first day are "Sore ga Anata no Shiawase to Shite mo or Mousou Kanshou Daishou Renmei", "flowers or childhood" for the second day, "music or date" for the third day, "royalty or fantasy" for the fourth day, "shopping or late night calling" for the fifth day, "stargazing" for the sixth day, and the seventh and last day is free day.

Fandom

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Trivia

 * Their ship name is referred to with the "🎼🎨" emojis.
 * Their Kizuna Rank titles are: "My Seal of Approval", "We Need You", and "The Light That Turns Grey".
 * One of their Cheerful Carnival Team names is "Thank You For Seeing My Art".
 * Kanade and Ena have covered two songs together ( and ).
 * In Ena's 2022 Valentine's menu line, she wonders why Kanade is so insistent on not telling where she lives as she (Ena) wants to send her Valentine's chocolates.
 * As of the "Tied By Painful Hope" event (May 2022), Ena has said Kanade's name 409 times.