Shinonome Siblings

"You're the reason I started singing..."

- Akito in The Sounds of a Summer Festival! Chapter 8 - On a Cobblestone Path

Akiena is the family ship between Akito Shinonome and Ena Shinonome from the Project SEKAI fandom.

Canon
Akito and Ena are siblings with a one-year difference, with Ena being the older of the pair. At the beginning of the story, it is shown that although deep down they care for each other and share their feelings of inferiority in regards to their talents, the siblings do not get along as well as the other sibling pairs (Tsukasaki and Shizushiho), with Ena constantly lashing out at Akito, using him as an errand boy, and the latter calling her annoying among other things. At one point Akito mentions that when Ena gets mad, she at times throws things at Akito and even scratches him. Touya also mentions that he remembers how Akito's skin was filled with scratches when they met for the first time.

Outside of the area conversations, the two are shown interacting in Ena's 1* first side story. While Ena is in her room, knocks on her door and she lets him come in. Akito asks if Ena could just return the CD jacket she had borrowed from him as a reference for her drawing. Akito then asks why she couldn't have done it earlier, and before Akito is able to leave, Ena demands he go to the cake shop Mizuki talked to her about. When Akito points out their cheesecake is made in limited quantities, she demands him to wake her up early so they can queue up for it. Akito agrees with a sigh and leaves, and Ena realizes she wasn't muted so Mizuki heard their conversation.

SEKAI Happy New Year!
While the two don't interact with each other in the Event Story, they are shown together in Ena's card story. Ena exits her room, checking out which sweets they received as gifts she should bring to Niigo's New Year's countdown party at the Empty SEKAI. She enters the living room, only to find Akito munching on then. She immediately asks what he's doing with the gifts, leading to Akito revealing their mother told him to divide them between the family. When Akito tells her where the madeleines he is eating came from, Ena retorts saying she surely didn't tell Akito to eat them all, but Akito just comments that they taste way too good to not be eaten. He then in turn counters Ena's words, asking her if she didn't leave her room just to snatch some of the sweets too. Ena doesn't deny it, and then mentions she'll brew black tea. Akito asks her to make some tea for him too, saying it's no effort to put in more water, and Ena tells him she'll do it if brings the gifts to her room.

Insatiable Pale Color
In Chapter 1, Ena happens to run into Akito while going to get some snacks, then asking him to get snacks for her, however he declines telling her to get it herself and leaves. In Chapter 2, Akito greets Ena as she walks into the living room guessing she pulled an all-nighter, however Ena just tells him to shut up and asks why he isn't rushing to school and he answers her question. In Chapter 4, Akito walks into her room calling her loud, and quickly asking what's wrong with her room, while Ena responds telling him to shut up. However, he then notices what she’s throwing out and questions her, but she says it has nothing to do with him. Despite this, he still asks and she tells him the same thing while kicking him out of her room. And lastly in the final chapter, Akito greets her once she enters the living room and Ena apologizes for lashing out on him, however he says it didn’t bother him. She then says she decided to continue drawing, and Akito tells her to do her best.

Secret Distance
Similarly to SEKAI Happy New Year!, Akito and Ena only interact in Ena's card story.

The Sounds of a Summer Festival!
In Chapter 4, it is shown how Ena managed to give Akito the push to pursue music. When the elementary school Akito left his soccer team after a lost game, Ena called him to get her shoes because her wooden sandals hurt. Ena gets pissed off because he brought her sneakers, causing them to argue and Ena to claim it'll clash with her yukata, but in the end, Ena thanks him anyways. Akito thinks she's just complaining too much and tries to leave the summer festival but gets interrupted by Shota, his friend from his soccer team. Ena notices and tells Akito was feeling mopey after he quit soccer and it's very noticeable. Her words are interrupted by a loud cheering from a nearby concert. Ena insists on checking it out with Akito. Although Akito was never interested in music, he felt a little moved because of all of the big cheering and the atmosphere. Ena insists on Akito trying out music. Akito does not consider it but Ena urges Akito to give things a try.

In Chapter 7, Ena and Niigo also plan to join the summer festival and attend the concert. However, when BAD DOGS are about to come up, their shoes were mixed up by some equipment and was put somewhere else. This means it will be much harder for both Akito and Touya to perform onstage and will need to find them before their time to perform. Ena and Mizuki finds their shoes and calls Akito and goes to bring these shoes. Ena still remembers what happened in the other summer festival back then.

In Chapter 8, Ena actually liked the performance but says it's "okay" anyways. Airi and Shizuku arrive to the festival grounds and tell Akito that "it was a wonderful performance", and after he thanks them in his overly polite tone, Ena calls him a creep. Everyone meets up and splits up into groups, and by coincidence Ena and Akito are next to each other. They get into a small argument about the other summer festival last time. But in the end Ena thinks it was cool that Akito stuck with singing, and Akito responds back with how she's the reason he started singing, but Ena doesn't hear it because of the festival noise.

What lies behind. What lies ahead.
In Chapter 2, the Niigo members run into VIVID BAD SQUAD after leaving the diner.

Fanon
In the Eastern fandom, Akiena is quite popular and the most popular out of the three sibling pairs, and it is quite often treated as a het ship. It currently has over 1,000 works on Pixiv. Meanwhile in the Western fandom, its romantic following is rather minor and most people have voiced their distate and disgust for the ship and Akiena shippers as well because of its incestuous nature, although non-romantically people enjoy seeing their development as well as stories showing how they support each other in their own ways. As such, the platonic/family variant of the ship is currently the 2nd most written ship for both Akito and Ena on AO3. At the same time, some Western fans have accused them having a toxic relationship or that Ena is abusive towards Akito.

In fanworks, both are shown to bicker a lot, sometimes even more than in canon. After the release of both Akito's White Day 2022 costume and Ena's costume for the "My Footprints, Your Destination" event as well as salamander design for Salamander, there has been a lot of fanart where Akito is a knight hunting Ena or them being in a fantasy setting together.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION


 * FAN ART


 * TWITTER

Trivia

 * Their ship is referred to with the "🎨🥞" emojis.
 * Their Kizuna Rank titles are: "Shinonome Siblings", "Intimate(?) Siblings", and "Not Gonna Lose".
 * Some of their Cheerful Carnival Team names are "The One Word That Started It All", "Shinonome Siblings", "Same Tastes in Food" and "Sleep In Your Room".
 * In multiple area conversations as well as one of the 1-komas, it is shown that Ena often drags Akito along with her while going shopping and making him carry her bags.
 * In an area conversation, the two are at the music store where Ena is trying to find an album which she saw quickly in a commercial based on its cover while Akito grumbles but helps her. In another, Kohane runs into Akito at the shopping mall and tells her to stay quiet so he doesn't alert Ena and let her know where he is.
 * They have a cover of DECO*27's song, which was specfically created for the Nissin Cup Ramen collaboration with Project SEKAI.
 * They like and dislike the same foods (cheese cake/pancakes and carrots). Mizuki also points this out in Ena's introduction video, causing her to get annoyed.
 * When not using Ena's name, Akito refers to her with the term "Aneki" (姉貴), which is a very casual word and is most commonly translated as "Sis".
 * In an area conversation between Mizuki and Ena, when Ena asks why Mizuki wants to introduce Akito to everyone, Mizuki says it's because they like seeing Ena's reactions to him putting on his good guy mask when meeting new people.