Mafuemu

Mafuemu is the femslash ship between Mafuyu Asahina and Emu Ootori from the Project SEKAI fandom.

Canon
Mafuyu is a second year student at Miyamasuzaka Girls' Academy. Emu goes to the same school, although she is in her first year. Mafuyu is a part of the music circle called 25-ji, Nightcord de. (shortened to Niigo) while Emu is a member of the theater troupe Wonderlands x Showtime. Though they are not in the same group, they have quite a few interactions, such as their multiple menu lines and the sports festival event.

Mafuyu is known and admired for being a "good girl", but in reality that is a mask. Mafuyu seems to have a lack of emotions. Emu is extremely cheerful and impulsive, and wants to make everyone around her smile. Emu is aware that Mafuyu isn't really smiling when she smiles, and has made it a goal to make her smile for real. However, she is also extremely terrified of Mafuyu's fake smile.

Run! Sports Festival! Committee Rush
When meeting, Emu asks Mafuyu if they've met before, while Mafuyu ignores the question, introducing herself. Mafuyu says it's nice to meet Emu, and she says the same back. Mafuyu's fans and friends cheer her on, and one of them proclaims that Mafuyu is perfect at everything, causing Mafuyu to get subtly irritated. She says she and Emu will do their best, in which Emu is spooked seeing her fake smile to respond, calling her scary in her mind. Later on, Mafuyu tells Emu to do her best, and the two begin racing. While proceeding forward, Mafuyu asks if they can go faster, and Emu cheerfully tells her she can. Mafuyu then tells her they will keep up the fast pace they're going at. When the race is over, Mafuyu smiles at Emu and says she couldn't have won without Emu, causing the latter to think she is genuinely smiling, but after Mafuyu's friends run over and put her on a pedestal, Emu gets scared by her smile again.

After completing the event story, three area conversations are unlocked between the two. In the first one, Mafuyu asks why Emu sometimes looks as if she's intimidated while interacting with Mafuyu. Emu responds saying she's really scary, but before she can finish that sentence, she freaks out and tells her she's nervous instead. Mafuyu tells her they shouldn't think of the senpai-kouhai formalities while talking to each other, and Emu cheerfully tells her she can do that. She then thinks to herself that Mafuyu looked a bit genuine while telling her that. In the second one, Mafuyu greets Emu and asks if she has club activities. Emu tells her she's got practice with both handball and swimming on that day, and tells Mafuyu it's not too physically taxing for her when the latter asks. Mafuyu then mentions she will come check her practice at the handball club some day, and Emu enthusiastically tells her she'll come to watch Mafuyu's archery practice in exchange. In the third one and most popular one, Emu does the Wonderhoy♪ pose at Mafuyu after asking about her theater troupe, and giggles and gives her fake smile asking what Emu is exactly doing. Emu is terrified and screams in her mind how badly her plan to make Mafuyu flash a real smile failed. Emu then tries explaining it's a greeting, Mafuyu tells her it's cute and Emu ends the conversation by nervously laughing.

Mafuyu also talks about Emu in her 3* card's second side story, while telling the other Niigo members about the sports festival.

Mafuyu's Birthday card
In card's Side Story 2, Mafuyu finds Emu hiding around the corner. When asked why she's hiding, Emu replies that it's because it's Mafuyu's birthday and she asked someone from the troupe at Phoenix Wonderland about comedy skit which will definitely make Mafuyu smile. She performs a skit and makes the pose Tsukasa taught her, but Emu's plan fails and Mafuyu only lets out a fake laugh. But she says that Emu is a very good cast member, since she was able to pull off two roles at once and that she enjoyed it a lot. Emu is upset that Tsukasa's comedy skit didn't really make Mafuyu smile and says that she will definitely try her best on Mafuyu's next birthday. Emu runs away, and Mafuyu says that she can't understand Emu at all.

April Fools 2022
In the alternative universe which was shown during April Fools, Emu and Mafuyu are part of the troupe "Happiness Sentai Sunny-Sunny ☆ Wonder". During their area conversations, Emu is shown to be nervous around Mafuyu, and tries everything she can to make Mafuyu smile for real. Mafuyu scares Emu by showing what vibe she would do for a villain character for their upcoming performance.

Quotes
"(Wh-What is this?! She's smiling but it doesn't feel like she's smiling... Sh-She's really scary...!!!!)"

- Emu in Run! Sports Festival! Committee Rush Chapter 4 - With My Senpai

Fanon
Mafuemu is heavily overshadowed by ships in Mafuyu and Emu's own groups, such as Mafuena and Kanamafu on Mafuyu's side, and Emunene and Emukasa on Emu's side. Despite this it is not a rarepair, as it has over 400 works on Pixiv and a steady flow of fanart on Twitter. On AO3, it currently has 65 works in total. People enjoy the dynamic of the usually cheerful Emu being terrified by Mafuyu's smile, as well as the dynamic of the cheerful one and the depressed one. They also like the way Emu tries to make Mafuyu show her true smile.

The first Mafuemu Ship Week was held on July 3-July 9, 2022. During this event, fans created various content on the given topics. The theme of the first day was first date/date night, the second day summer/firework festival, the third day fairytale/royalty (or other AUs), the fourth day sad/angst, the fifth day different fascion styles/crossover, the sixth day confession/valentines day and the seventh day was free choice.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

ART

TUMBLR

TWITTER
 * (Korean "Mafuemu" tag)
 * (Korean "Mafuemu" tag)
 * (Korean "Mafuemu" tag)
 * (Korean "Mafuemu" tag)

Trivia

 * Their ship is referred to with the "❄️🍬" and "🎭🍬" emojis.
 * Mafuyu is the only character Emu is scared of.
 * One of their Cheerful Carnival Team names is "Strange Juniors & Seniors".
 * In one of her winter in-game lines, Mafuyu tells Emu she is happy to see her being energetic but also tells her not to run in the hallways.
 * In an area conversation, Mafuyu asks Emu why she always seems to be intimidated around her, saying that she doesn't need to feel that way, and that she actually enjoys conversing with Emu. In which Emu finds that those words were genuine, and that she does indeed like talking to her.
 * They have dialogues for each other's birthdays. For Emu's birthday in 2021, Mafuyu didn't prepare a present, but wanted her to accept the congratulations. Emu for Mafuyu's birthday in 2022 wanted to tell a joke she heard from Tsukasa, and was sure that "she would explode with laughter when she heard it".