MatchaBlossom

MatchaBlossom is the slash ship between Kojiro "Joe" Nanjo and Kaoru "Cherry Blossom" Sakurayashiki from the SK8 the Infinity fandom.

Canon
Although not explicitly stated in the anime, they are both childhood friends. How they met and grew up is unknown, but they both went to the same high school and have been skating together since those years as well. In the present, Cherry tends to walk a lot into Joe's restaurant without Kojiro's explicit permission.

Their first interaction in the show happens in Episode 2. Cherry is having a business meal with a man called Mr. Tamashiro in Joe's restaurant. After Joe brings them their meals, Mr. Tamashiro's excuses himself for a moment to take an incoming phone call. Joe quietly asks if Cherry watched Langa skating, but Cherry tells him he's currently working. Joe says that he makes the rules in the restaurant and can talk to Cherry when he wants, eating a tomato off of Cherry's plate. Cherry takes the plate away from him and they start to argue, stepping on each other's feet and pulling at each other. Due to the noise, Mr. Tamashiro turns around, but Cherry and Joe quickly pretend nothing happened.

Later in the episode, they appear again at 'S' in their personas of 'Joe' and 'Cherry Blossom'. Cherry's ability of calculated skating is demonstrated, but Joe questions where the fun is in that. He performs an "Invert", a one arm handstand while the opposing hand grabs the skateboard, and tells Cherry skating is all about a feeling. When Joe corners him soon after, Cherry's AI skateboard states it's highly inefficient. After Joe tells the machine to stay quiet, they start to argue once again and try to push each other off their skateboards.

In Episode 4 they are at Joe's restaurant again, talking alone after hours. Cherry states he will challenge Adam to a beef. Since Joe wants to do the same, Cherry accuses him of copying and tells to stand back. They agree on a challenge to decide who will get to race Adam first and Cherry declares calligraphy as the challenge subject. Joe is angered since he chose his profession and says he was like that during their school excursion, too.

When Adam appears to his beef with Reki, Joe and Cherry both arrive at the same time and challenge him. However, nothing comes of it. They spend the rest of the episode watching Reki's race against Adam, commenting from time to time.

When Reki asks for some advice from Cherry since Langa wants to win against Adam, he invites Reki and his friends to Joe's restaurant. Kojiro asks angrily why they were using his place without permission, but gets no response. Ignoring Joe, Cherry shows Reki and his other friends how Adam's "Love Hug" worked, giving a demonstration to them on his skateboard. As he explains the move, he does a 180° spin on his skateboard, "Carla", and ends up inches away from Joe's face. Cherry looks up, acknowledging their height difference; and points out evenly that he is "too close" to Joe, which annoys Kojiro.

In Episode 6, Miya tries to get Joe's attention away from the ladies, pointing towards his "Mom" who will supposedly kill him if he doesn't come back soon. Joe is amazed and astonished by legs he thinks are those of a woman, but after peering closer, they turn out to be Cherry Blossom's. In the recap Episode 9.5, Miya and Shadow explain that while at the beach, Joe picked up Cherry and threw him into the water at some point. They mention that Cherry was really angered by that and later used a paintbrush to skillfully write insults on Joe's aloha shirt.

As payback for barging into Joe's restaurant, he orders five more meals in Cherry's private suite, and allows the others to dig in despite a very exasperated Cherry. In the same episode, the two are the first on arriving at the thermal waters together after taking a shortcut to go there. Not long after they had settled in, they exchanged spiteful but joking conversation, only stopping to shout in fear when both were attacked by the "mud creatures".

In Episode 8, Joe and Cherry are talking inside of Joe's restaurant alone after hours when it is revealed that they have traveled together. They are arguing about whether the "hunches" Joe has are credible or not, and they bring up several different places: a social studies trip, restaurant in L.A., and a bar in Paris. The reason behind the trip to L.A. and Paris are unknown.

In Episode 9, in an after credit scene Cherry visits Joe's restaurant, Cherry is seen in bandages after leaving the hospital prematurely. Cherry then later passes out after brief conversation with Joe about Langa and Adam's skating. While unconscious Joe makes a remark to Cherry that he is sure that Adam is unhappy because he's alone, and follows up by saying that at least they're not alone. When saying this, Joe is looking down on a sleeping Cherry with a fond expression, as he whispers softly "Right...Kaoru?".

In Episode 10, it was confirmed that Joe was the first to rush to Cherry's side after he was severely injured by Adam, yelling "Kaoru!" while Cherry laid unconscious on the ground. When Adam explains how boring it was to skate with Cherry, Joe becomes aggressive and is about to insult him, but Shadow suddenly pulls up behind them. Joe quickly picks up Cherry in bridal style and brings him to the car so they can get to a hospital.

Cherry and Joe do the preview voice over for Episode 11. Cherry says he's the only one who can beat Adam, but Joe tells him that he'll lose his standing if he loses again. They start to bicker and Joe teases him by revealing that although Cherry acts like he enjoys Japanese food, he actually likes Italian food. Cherry tries to stop him from exposing that fact, but says "One Carbonara, please!" at the very end.

In Episode 11, Cherry is still in his wheelchair when returning to S. Him and Joe are both there to support Reki and watch his race against Adam. Since Cherry uses a manual wheelchair instead of his custom one from Episode 9 this time, he demands Joe to push him to the finish line to wait for Reki there. Even though Joe tells him not to be so arrogant, he easily gives in and is already pushing Cherry while telling him that. Later, when Adam slips in the rain and falls face first to the ground, Cherry starts to laugh passionately. Joe is taken aback at first and simply looks at him, but also starts to laugh loudly alongside him. They both continue to cheer for Reki and greet him when he makes it to the finish line.

Commercial Skits

 * In one of the SK8 commercials, they both appear together in the quick scene. Joe is shown trying to prank Cherry by adding hot and spicy sauce on the spaghetti which Joe himself prepared and served to Cherry. However, his malicious plans succeeded yet failed at the same time, as Cherry easily consumed it and spat fire from his mouth. Coincidentally facing Joe at the moment, his face was burnt in an instant. Cherry is seen calmly cleaning his mouth afterwards.
 * In another commercial skit, Cherry's skateboard transforms mid jump and gets mechanical wings. Cherry flies off into the distance, Joe on the ground watching and happily waving while the others are left speechless.

Fanon
MatchaBlossom is the second most popular ship in the fandom after Renga, which tends to be shipped alongside them.

A popular headcanon among MatchaBlossom fans is that Joe has been in love with Cherry since their teens, but Cherry developed a crush on Adam when they first met him, causing Joe to fool around with girls in the present because he still feels like his unrequited crush is going nowhere. Episode 9 especially sparked this theory. The flashbacks in that episode show Cherry being completely captivated by Adam, while Joe can be seen somewhat upset or suspicious in one frame. In the present during that episode, Joe is shown to be concerned about Cherry skating with Adam, although he can't bring himself to voice his worries before the race. In the meanwhile Cherry is fully focused on winning against Adam. Some speculate that Joe clinking glasses with Cherry in the after credit scene while Cherry is asleep symbolizes that Joe will always be at Cherry's side despite the obstacles and possible feelings. Fans of this headcanon enjoy Joe's loyalty, comforting nature and him pining for Cherry.

Many also simply joke that Joe and Cherry have been secretly married or dating for the entirety of the show.

Their bickering nature and comfortable demeanor around each other is often interpreted as typical marriage behavior. Because they're likely the oldest and most mature of the main cast, they're also seen as the parents of the main group. They both frequently give advice to the others, teaching them and being moral support throughout the series. While this parental idea was mostly a joke when it first circulated, due to how close the characters become throughout the series many have come to love the group being a found family. Joe and Cherry being the dads was further fueled by multiple things. They often have dialouge that can resemble how parents speak to their kids, Miya is shown to hang in Joe's restaurant in his free time to play games and they're concerned but also supportive during Reki's race for example. Some even say they behave like a couple or parents that had a divorce.

Joe is typically seen as bisexual as he often flirts with women and is seen kissing them in canon while Cherry is usually interpreted as gay since he has shown no interest in women and only displayed possible romantic feelings towards Adam in the past.

On AO3, Matcha Blossom is the most written ship for both Kaoru and Kojiro. It is also the second most written ship in the Sk8 the Infinity (Anime) tag.

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Trivia

 * "MatchaBlossom" is a reference to their hair colours: Matcha Tea which is green for 'Joe', and Blossom which is pink for 'Cherry Blossom'.
 * Green is the opposite of pink on the colour spectrum, meaning their hair colours are each other's inverted.
 * Ichirō Ōkouchi, the screenwriter of SK8, said the following about Joe and Cherry in the Animedia magazine from March 2021: "They may fight a lot but they would never say anything that would actually hurt the other. It's like... play-flighting. For all their fighting, Cherry still comes to Joe's restaurant all the time."
 * Their English voice actors both ship MatchaBlossom, often mentioning and teasing it on their social media.
 * Jonah Scott, Joe's voice actor, is a bisexual man and headcanons Joe as bisexual, while Daman Mills, Cherry's voice actor, is a gay man and headcanons Cherry as such.
 * Both have the tea and cherry blossom emoji in their Twitter display names, a common thing for matchablossom shippers to do.
 * Jonah Scott has made a YouTube video reading out multiple MatchaBlossom posts, as well as a video where he points at MatchaBlossom pictures and says "This thing right here? This? My favourite thing."
 * The English dub is often deemed to have even more romantic tension between them as a few dialouges were changed in both words and tone.
 * One example would be the "Love Hug" scene where Cherry demonstrates the move. While in the Japanese version Cherry says "So close" and Joe replies with "You know..." in a mostly annoyed tone, in the English version Cherry says "Hello there." rather provocatively when coming close to Joe, who whispers "You're too close".
 * Joe sarcastically calls Cherry "cute" and "precious" in the English dub.
 * Episode 9's after credit scene in Joe's restaurant is especially beloved by fans. In an interview it was stated that Cherry has anxiety and often has Carla play lullabies, but Cherry easily falls asleep in Joe's restaurant in that scene. Fans see this as Joe's presence and the restaurant being comforting and soothing to Cherry.
 * Takayuki Yamamoto, a staff member working on storyboard and direction, commented on Episode 9 with: "[...], but I hope that people also focus on the relationship of the adults. Adults are difficult, because they have a hard time being honest with each other. [...]". This comment is usually connected to Joe and Cherry's relationship since it played a role in the episode and fit their dynamic.
 * There were many fanfictions and artworks depicting Joe to be the one to carry Cherry to the hospital before Episode 10 came out, causing great joy among fans when this concept was actually revealed to be canon.
 * Because there was no footage of Joe picking up Cherry and throwing him into the water and it was simply explained over animation of previous episodes, many artworks and comics depicting this scene were made after the recap episode came out.