Piano Tiles

Piano Tiles is the femslash ship between Chiaki Nanami and Kaede Akamatsu from the Danganronpa fandom.

Canon
Chiaki and Kaede never interacted in canon. They come from different sagas. Chiaki is from Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair and Danganronpa 3, while Kaede is from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. Chiaki died before anything with V3 meaning she hasn't heard of Kaede. However it is likely Kaede has heard of Chiaki, being a Danganronpa fan herself.

Chiaki and Kaede are similar in that they both acted as the emotional support for the male protagonists of their respective games. They have an undefeated attitude, though Chiaki tends to express it differently.

In the extra game Ultimate Talent Development Plan, Chiaki and Kaede would have met in the real Hope's Peak Academy. Their similarities include similar eye colors, talent-themed clothing, backpacks and their overall uniform is similar as pink seems to be the color used most on each of their designs. They are also similar for their strong concern towards their classmates that cost their lives. With Kaede dying by being executed for trying to help her classmates finding out the mastermind, and Chiaki playing the despair game that killed her when she thought that she finally cleared it and saved her classmates.

When challenged to hone their talents in Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, Chiaki and Kaede choose to work together to create an album of video game music on piano.

Fanon
Piano Tiles seemed to sail as their designs look nice together and that they have similar traits. It seemed to have started as a crackship or a random character ship first, but developed some fans along the way. There isn't much art or fanfiction existing of the pair. However, headcanons and shippers seem to be more abundant. For a generally rare ship, it developed a good amount of traction on Twitter, and now has a fair amount of shippers. Twitter user @saiiboz seems to be the first person to refer to the pair as Piano Tiles. However, the ship was around before its name. Rival ships include Hinanami, Saimatsu, Irumatsu, and Nanamiki. On AO3, the ship currently has 9 works, while it has over 10 as a platonic pairing.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

Trivia

 * The name Piano Tiles comes from a mobile game where the player taps or holds squares to earn points, playing notes of the piano along to a song as each level, or song progresses. Art of the two often reference the game.
 * As with most Chiaki ships, it is a name of a game, and a piano reference with Kaede.