Akian

Akian is the het ship between Akito Shinonome and An Shiraishi from the Project SEKAI fandom.

Canon
Akito and An are part of the street music group Vivid BAD SQUAD. They were previously competing as two groups. They went to the same middle school and currently go to the same high school, Kamiyama High, where they're both second-year students and classmates. They're rivals and often bicker with each other about who's the best between the two, and sometimes An stops Akito from teasing Kohane too much. The two of them became immersed in music after witnessing An's father and his group RADders host and perform at the legendary event called RAD WEEKEND, in hopes of pulling off a performance that is equally hype and "in order to surpass that night."

In Vivid BAD SQUAD's Main Story, Akito was immediately interested in asking An to become part of his and Touya's street music unit after being recommended. Having seen her perform at her father's café and considering her to be of equal skill and drive. However, upon asking her to join, he was disappointed. An had rejected his offer in favor of partnering with kohane, who she had met a few days prior. Akito felt that An's belief in Kohane would only drag her down due to Kohane's lack of musical experience not matching An's talents, leading him to instead decide to compete against her with Touya.

During An and Kohane's (now performing under the name Vivids) first live show, a friend of Akito's deliberately cut off the audio track during their performance. This caused Kohane to get struck with stage fright and forcing An to cover for her. Despite knowing that he didn't do it, Akito took the blame for the incident. He cited that he believed that he and Touya took their music more seriously than An and pointing to Kohane as evidence for it. Kohane, feeling she let An down, runs off. With An angrily telling Akito that "she expected better of him, and that she was proven wrong".

Later, after winning back Kohane (who has now decided to sincerely adopt An's dream of wanting to surpass RAD WEEKEND), the girls are approached by Akito's friend, who clarifies that Akito wasn't the one who sabotaged their concert and apologized. Realizing her mistake, An and Kohane band together to make up with Akito and check on him after his fight with Touya.

It is shown that Akito is one of the first people to usually notice and point it out when something is wrong with An or she is feeling doubtful. In Chapter 1 of the Singing in Sync event, Akito instantly asks why An told Kohane that she'll cover for her in the unlikely event that anything goes wrong during their battle event at STAY GOLD. An doesn't understand what Akito means by it and he decides not to bug An more despite his suspicions. In Chapter 3, after Kohane runs out and An laments the fact she failed her and couldn't protect her, Akito immediately calls her out on this, making her realize she doesn't consider Kohane her equal. When Akito then says they need to discuss and make sure they won't fail the same way, he specficailly asks An if she was listening. At the end of the event, An then thanks Akito for making her open her eyes to her conflict.

This later happens again in the Bout for Beside You event, where he and Miku help An realize she is afraid that Kohane will eventually overcome her in singing and leave her behind.

A Gentleman Thief's Thrilling White Day?!
In Akito's 4* card's second side story, Akito is explaining his "performance" at the chocolate factory on White Day, but when he mentions he brought Chocota back to the green room while Mizuki helped Tsukasa make chocolates, An asks, seeming intrigued, "Wait, how did you get him (Chocota) out of there?" Akito takes a moment to think back to that moment, making him blush in embarrassment. An starts giggling hysterically at his embarrassment and teases him, even saying she couldn't picture him ever saying what he did as she continued to laugh. As Akito furrows his brows in annoyance at her teasing, he replies, "Will you quit laughing already?!" but later into the story, he teases An back.

Scream!? Welcome to the Wolf Forest!
After Kohane told her teammates about her class cultural festival, An expected it to be a maid cafe, however when Kohane said it was a horror / scary theme. An instantly freezes up in fear, making Akito looked at her confused, he then remembers from that An is horrified of ghosts, so he teased her about being scared which resolved in An blushing out of embarrassment.

Find A Way Out
During this event, it's revealed that Akito's biggest inspiration to surpass RAD WEEKEND was provoked by An's singing and determination.

Kick it up a notch
In the event, Akito notices something wrong with An when she and the others watch Kohane's growth and development. He encourages her to go forward. She thanks him and encourages him back. Akito then gives her a soft smile before going onstage.

Other Stories
In An's Colorful Festival card, where she goes into a SEKAI of the Vivid Street in her memories, she mentions to Len and Rin that Akito inspired her and how he also kept telling her they'll make their dream of surpassing RAD WEEKEND come true one day. In this card it's also implied that An wanted to ask Akito to be partners, this based on the dialogue she says "Yeah, but, he also found his partner pretty soon after he started, y'know?"

Quotes
"Thanks for being such a great teammate and source of advice when it comes to having a partner. I'll be counting on you moving forward!"

- Happy Birthday!! (Akito) second side story

"Now I see. You were worried about me. Thanks, Akito."

- Bout for Beside You Episode 5 "A Back Alley Chat"

"Akito will surely light up the fire~!"

- An in Find The Exit

"Happy Birthday. Well, as teammates, I'll be counting on you from now on too. Let's keep doing our best together."

- Akito's line for An's Birthday (2023)

Fanon
Akian is one of the most popular het ships in the Project SEKAI fandom with its popularity being primarily owed to the fact that the two are in a co-ed unit together, something rare in and of itself due to the games distinct lack of male characters in units compared to the vast number of female ones. Because they're in the same unit, they have more interactions with each other along with their fellow unit members than they do with any of the characters outside of their group. Because of these common interactions, it is seen as somewhat of a rival to both Anhane and AkiToya. It is often shipped together with Toukoha.

For fan reactions, Akian fans tend to see Akito and An's dynamic within their unit's main story and additional materials as entertaining in their rivalry, and their similar passion towards their goals. It also helps that in their pairing you can find some pretty famous romantic tropes like "tsundere" or "like an old married couple". In the Eastern part of the fandom, one of the most popular prompts is to make Akito flustered by An's "too close" sense of distance. At the same time, fans of other ships often criticize Akian, accusing its of being less interesting than the slash ships with Akito and An, not least because of the friendship theme and lack of too explicit ship bait, slash pairings seem to get more development and attention from the author than straight. But one way or another, in the end it often comes down to choosing ships from the het and slash options in general. It is both An and Akito's 2nd most written ship on AO3. In Pixiv, they have 948 works in total (238 illustrations + 88 manga + 622 fanfictions), making them the 3rd het ship with most fan content in the branch after Ruinene and Emukasa.

Some people are against Akian because they see An and Akito as siblings. This is likely because An’s father has acted as Akito’s surrogate father since Akito’s middle school years and because An and Akito often bicker like Akito and his older sister.

An Akian Week was held on July 20th-27th 2023, under. Prompts for the first day were "confession", "jealousy or Hanahaki disease" for the second day, "wedding or picnic" for the third day, "Gimme×Gimme or Traffic Jam" for the fourth day, "royalty AU or sunflower AU" for the fifth day, "free choice or future" for the sixth day, and "An's Birthday" for the seventh and final day (since the week ended on her birthday).

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION


 * FAN ART


 * TWITTER

Trivia

 * Their ship is referred to with the "🥞🎧" emojis.
 * They have a 16 cm height difference, with Akito being 176 cm and An being 160 cm tall.
 * It is shown that Akito and An both tend to have trouble studying, to the point where they need to take supplementary classes.
 * In the fandom, Akian duet alt vocals are regarded as a bit of a meme, most of the time due to their bad mixing. As such, some have even claimed that "Colorful Palette must hate Akian" or that someone in the development team is trying to sabotage them constantly.
 * In the third Vivid BAD SQUAD Archive, they covered . Aside from being criticized for its horrendous mixing and quality compared to the other VIVID BAD SQUAD Archive entries, some anti-shippers have pettily used it to justify that "Akian truly has no chemistry".
 * At the end of the GimmexGimme cover, there was a kiss that can be heard. Akian fans tend to headcanon that they kissed at the end. At the same time, some have also called it a reach as the kiss/smooch sound effect is also part of the original VIRTUAL SINGER version.
 * Their another vocal duet for was so badly received due to its line distribution that Colorful Palette released an official apology and promised to add an updated version for the duet later. On September 26, 2023, they updated the alternate vocal, which has now been added in the game.
 * Akito and An have another vocal duets for and  together. In addition to this, An sings Akito's parts in her and Kohane's version of.
 * In An's alt vocal cover, throughout the full chorus, Akito is singing with her in the background.
 * Their Kizuna Rank titles are: "Bad at Studying", "Team Lively", and "My Partner is the Best".
 * Some of their Cheerful Carnival Team names are "Guessing & Cramming Skills" and "Just Don't Get a Failing Grade".
 * In Vivid Old Tale, Akito and An has matching sunflower earrings, also Akito has a butterfly earring just like An’s hairclips.
 * In the Project Sekai Manga Anthology, Touya says how Akito and An are acting like Kohane's parents.
 * In the "Walk on and on" event, it is revealed that both Akito and An are in charge of composing their unit's songs.
 * When Wedding An's event banner was released, Fumiya Imai (Akito's voice actor) commented on it saying she looks beautiful in it. Some people, especially in the Western fandom, took this as confirmation that Akian is canon or that Imai is an Akian supporter and even harassed him for it, to the point where he deleted his tweet.
 * Together with Toukoha, they also have an unofficial fanartist event called "YOU-hollllic STREET", which has been now run for three times (found under the #youholic_01, #youholic_02 and #youholic_03 hashtags in Twitter).