Keisara

Keisara is the het ship between Keiji Shinogi and Sara Chidouin from the Your Turn To Die fandom.

Chapter 1, Part 1
After the Death Game starts, Keiji wakes Sara up, making him the first character that Sara meets when the full cast is introduced.

In the JPN text, Keiji calls Sara "Sara-chan" right from the get-go, using both her given name and a diminutive suffix, which is very casually intimate and strange given Japan's cultural practices.

Sara can choose to go along with his suggestion, or call him out on him being over-familiar. If she agrees that the group should all introduce themselves, Keiji compliments her, saying the calm ones know what to say. If Sara calls him out for being too friendly, Keiji refutes her statement by claiming that he doesn't have any other way to refer to her, which is why the introductions are necessary. Even after introductions, however, he does not change how his manner of referring to Sara, no matter your previous decision.

In the Blue Room, after Sara has obtained the Dummy Bullets, Real Bullets, and Revolver, she can initiate a conversation with Keiji about the meaning of why the kidnappers gave the participants a weapon. Keiji supposes that perhaps they wanted to create discord among the group, but then mentions that with Sara here, the participants won't fall into that trap.

Due to all his previous support of her despite their status as strangers, Sara is suspicious of his reasoning and asks why he trusts her so much. Without any pause, Keiji tells her that it's because she's cute. Unaffected by the flirtatious remark and understanding that it's a deflection of her question, Sara wonders to herself about why Keiji has been guiding everyone to trust her. Keiji is briefly disappointed in her lack of reaction to a compliment, but Sara sidesteps his remark and brings up the Dummy Bullets she found in the Pink Room.

Chapter 1, Part 2
In Chapter 1, Part 2, the group deals with the aftereffects of Mishima's death.

After a voice over the intercom informs the participants that they need to leave the Pink Room in order to allow for collection of the body, Nao panics and runs away with Mishima's head shoved into the box Qtaro brought, prompting Gin to immediately take off after her. Joe, Keiji, and Sara follow behind in the confusion.

Initially the group includes Joe, but upon reaching the Central Hall with no sign of Nao, Sara can decide to either split up and search, or search the Second Floor together. If Sara chooses to search the Second Floor together as a group, Joe immediately denies the suggestion, worried that Nao could be on the First Floor still. He volunteers to search the First Floor, and asks Keiji to search upstairs with Sara. If Sara chooses to split up, Keiji takes the initiative to ask Joe to search the First Floor. Immediately, Joe asks if it wouldn't be dangerous with just the two of them searching the new floor. Lackadaisically, Keiji mentions that it could be a dangerous date. Joe seemingly accepts this dubious answer, and tells them that if they're late getting back, he'll call for the others. In the end, the final result is the same, as Joe splits off from the group and leaves Keiji and Sara to search the second floor.

Thus starts Keiji and Sara's unofficial partnership.

Chapter 2, Part 1
In Chapter 2, Part 1, Sara is tormented by her self-imposed hallucinations of Joe and the other dead victims of the Death Game.

When Keiji tells her that she should get some rest, Sara tells him that she doesn't want to sleep. The player has the option to ask Keiji to stay with her or tell him that she wants to move around. Regardless of the player's choice the end result is the same, in which Keiji offers his shoulder to Sara.

Chapter 2, Part 2
In Chapter 2, Part 2, the Second Main Game begins, and the surviving cast must deal with the new forcible trading phase.

When the group is escaping up the Long Stairs, the topic of what everyone wants to do when they escape comes up. Keiji wonders out loud what he wants to do after getting his freedom back and the player has multiple options to respond with. One option involves Sara telling Keiji that he should find something worth doing. This leads Keiji to thoughtfully respond that maybe he should find a reason for living, to which Sara immediately replies that she'd be glad to assist. Keiji is noticeably taken aback until he realizes Sara is unaware of the secondary meaning behind her literal statement, and thanks her, much to her confusion.

General
Keiji occasionally calls Sara "cute", usually to deflect from answering her questions properly. However, he also often flirts with Sara without prompting, and other characters have commented on his flirtatious remarks toward Sara.

Your Time to Shine
In Mishima's Route, in Keiji's First Fondness Event, Keiji asks to drink with Mishima, and when Mishima hesitates and plans to refuse, he offers to drink with Sara instead, despite her status as a minor who is not legally allowed to drink alcohol as she is under 20 years old. Mishima points this fact out and Keiji lazily asks if the laws apply on the island, which is enough to make Mishima hurriedly take his offer.

In the case that Sara has died before the event, rather than choosing a different underaged character to threaten Mishima with, Keiji insteads holds himself hostage in order to persuade Mishima.

Fanon
Keisara sailed as a result of Keiji's constant flirtatious behavior as well as the two characters' complex relationship of trust and distrust. It is by far the most popular ship in the Japanese fandom, while it's somewhat controversial in Western fandom spaces due to the age difference between the two characters.

For the Western audience, however, Sara is considered underage, which disturbs many fans, regardless of how small the age difference could be. Certain fans who are bothered with this fact are willing to ship the two as soon as Sara reaches adulthood and the more universal age of consent, but generally, most Western Keisara fans acknowledge the preexisting problematic context and separate fiction and reality.

In most Japanese prefectures, the general age of consent of 13 has been raised to a range of 16-18, unless the party is considered to be in "sincere romantic relationship", which is usually determined by parental consent. The age of marriage is 16 for girls and 18 for boys with parental permission, and 20 without permission. This is because the age of majority is currently 20 in Japan. Following suit, Sara would not be considered an adult in Japan until she turns 20.

Eastern fandoms are very stringent in separating fiction and reality, so such moral considerations in regards to fiction are more or less nonexistent. For many Eastern fans, the most popular age difference headcanon for Keiji and Sara is generally viewed to be a difference of 10 years, with Sara being 17 and Keiji assumed to be in his late 20's. The imbalance of power due to Sara's status as a minor and Keiji's status as an adult is taken into consideration for the ship and the difference in level of life experience is considered one of the many charm points of Keisara.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

TUMBLR

WIKI
 * on

Trivia

 * Keisara has the most fanworks out of any Your Turn to Die pairings on the Japanese site Pixiv, amounting to up to 387 works as of July 8th 2020.
 * At the current time, Keiji has called Sara "cute" 8 times throughout the game.
 * Due to the nature of Japanese honorifics, certain moments of the game involving Keiji and Sara take on additional context with their inclusion.
 * Generally, Keiji attaches "-chan" to Sara's name, but at times, Keiji calls Sara without any honorifics, which changes the tone of the dialogue. While some characters forgo honorifics in general, and therefore have a casually rude tone, it is a different story to change a preexisting honorific, as that signifies a change in relationship.
 * Notable moments where Keiji directly calls Sara by her given name:
 * 1-2
 * Immediately after the First Main Game's preliminary vote, when Sara is panicking due to her being chosen, Keiji shouts at her to get a hold of herself, and then belatedly attaches the honorific he didn't use.
 * 2-2
 * When talking to the Keiji AI, Sara notes that Keiji seems different. This tonal difference is more obvious in the Japanese version, as the AI actually calls her "Sara", rather than "Sara-chan", which gives a strange, colder vibe to their dialog.
 * In 3-1-A, due to the way the chapter part was updated in pieces, the original update ended in the elevators. When the game was updated again, players who loaded a save in the elevator received an extra scene involving Keiji and Sara.