Answered Question: Fandom’s Theories About Eichi And Chiaki’s Relationship Until Its Reveal
Wait I didn’t consider that you were there before the reveal of Chiaki and Eichi’s connection 👀 Do you think you can give your experience on what it was like when people were trying to figure out what kind of connection those two had and what it was like when it was finally revealed they’re childhood friends from the hospital? Sorry I know you get a bunch of questions on what it was like in the old days of the fandom. But speaking as a newbie to Enstars I find it so fun and interesting to get info on what it was like in the early years of the fandom from those who were there and are still invested!
Sent and answered in February 2024. tweet link of the answer
i don’t mind answering those kinds of questions, there’s a lot of fun enstars history both in the fandom and in the canon and it’s fun to preserve it in a way (?)
i entered the fandom late 2016 so sadly i wasn’t there for the ex-fine chiaki theory, since i assume people were like "oh Never Mind lmao" when element came out and revealed it was tsumugi/nagisa/hiyori who were part of the unit, etc. but i do remember the fanart!!! if you go back to 2015-2016 fanworks for chiaki and eichi, you’ll easily find fanart of that concept, all because of eichi calling chiaki by his first name in the main story (which people felt it HAD to be significant)
after it got debunked, i assume people moved on to a new theory thanks to wanted and supernova existing at around the same time as element… ? i’m not 100% sure since all those stories were in 2016, but it’d make sense. i’m looking through old tweets to get back a bit of my memory. but i think climax DEFINITELY started the thoughts back up because WHY WOULDN’T IT LMAO with how eichi was supporting chiaki’s dream… so people were all !!!! maybe they’re hospital friends after all…?!
at around this time, people were reliving the main story moments between the two and eating it up over and over and letting it feed their insane thoughts, thanks to the novel, manga, and then the full voiced main story that got released in 2017.
then according to my tweets, it seems like checkmate (may 2017) made the people with the hospital friends theory go "…oh🧍♂️ never mind ig" because it revealed that eichi and leo were hospital acquaintances/friends. can’t confirm this though and it’s been too long to remember clearly
BUT THEN… crossroad in july!! that made people go 🔥🔥🔥🔥 finding out CHIAKI SAVES EICHI AND THEN WANTS TO VISIT HIM… i remember a lot of tweets being like "please show us this scene i’m begging PLEASEE TELL US MOOOREEE" (little did we know).
so between 2017 up until the reveal in 2019 with saga, it was just a "well, who fucking knows, but it HAS to be significant somehow because of all these stories. maybe. who knows!". particularly crossroad, while tasty, made it harder to tell if they would’ve known each other as hospital friends, since it sounded like chiaki didn’t really know eichi well. i recall that at the time, it was kinda hard to imagine them as hospital friends because "then why don’t they remember each other" (but i remember people ignoring that part just as much for their hospital friends delusions. good for them /pos)
the theories started to "die out" a bit by the end of 2018 because all the hints were in 2016-2017 and the only 🔥🔥🔥 moment between eichi and chiaki was in the 2018 april fools story (which was Amazing), so… people were caught off guard SO FUCKING BADDDD, me included, when saga finally revealed the truth. OUT OF NOWHERE. NONE OF US WERE EXPECTING SAGA OF ALL STORIES TO HAVE SUCH IMPORTANT LORE FOR CHIAKI (AND EICHI) 😭😭😭
like a lot of stories, saga came out in 2 parts. the first part was chill and pretty fun. as a chiakiP he was just being cute in the chapters so far. but then on january 5th… the 2nd half came out and Oh My God. THE SHOCKKK. EVERYONE ALL AT ONCE "WAIT THEY WERE HOSPITAL FRIENDS AFTER ALl??? WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!?@?!@?!?@!?#?!$?!?!?$!??"
some of my tweets from that time
"EICHI AND CHIAKI MET EACH OTHER WHEN THEY WERE YOUNGER??? but it wasnt that much they just met and talked a few times in a hospital room im wtf I CANT BELIEVE ITS CANON"
"wtf what is this KGSKGE IS THIS AN ANIME OF LONG LOST CHILDHOOD FRIENDS yeah we both forgot about it but when we talked to each other more in school it all slowly came back to us uwu AKIRA GOING FULL OUT MAN"
"the entire godamn fandom: GUYS EICHI CALLS CHIAKI "CHIAKI" WHEN HE DOESN’T DO THAT WITH MANY PEOPLE EXCEPT HIS UNITMATES AND KEITO GUYS!!! GUYS THERES SMTHN IN THERE
akira: anyways tsumugi was in fine, leo and eichi were hospital friends in school
us: ……
akira:
us:
akira: and then eichi and chiaki were long lost childhood friends who forgot all about their meeting until they met each other again in school and slowly the memories poured into them as they talked m"
in retrospect, i think the ultimate funniest part of it all to me is……… both theories were right in their own way.
"ex-fine chiaki" isn’t true but "chiaki supported ex-fine at one point (until he found out the truth behind their actions)" IS REAL LMAOOO SAGA WAS THE FIRST TO CONFIRM IT, AND METEOR IMPACT MENTIONS IT AGAIN!!! I LAUGHED OUT SO HARD LIKE PEOPLE WEREN’T EVEN TECHNICALLY WRONG ABOUT THE EX-FINE!CHIAKI IDEAS. and then "hospital friends" ended up being true AND WHAT WE DIDN’T ACCOUNT FOR IS THAT THEY MIGHT’VE JUST FORGOTTEN EACH OTHER AT ONE POINT !!! JUST BECAUSE THEY SEEMED LIKE STRANGERS IN CROSSROAD DIDN’T MEAN THEY DIDN’T KNOW EACH OTHER!!! it’s sooo fucking funny honestly.
BUT IT WAS SUCH A GREAT DAY TO CELEBRATE, THE EICHI/CHIAKI FANART WAS EVERYWHERE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THE WHOLE FANDOM CHEERED!!!! that was a magical time because BOTH eichiP and chiakiP were so happy by the discovery… (which is what makes me love their friendship even more, you can tell both oshiPs just fucking LOVE this dynamic soooo much!!!) like it was just… unbelievable???? the theory existed for almost 4 years. FOUR YEARSSSS TO CONFIRM WE WEREN’T WRONG TO SEE SOMETHING IN THE "CHIAKI" NAME LMAOOOOOOOOO AKIRA IS INSANE?? there was new crossroad eichi/chiaki fanart, hospital babies fanart, magical fanart of how they slowly came to realize it’s the same person they met long ago… 🥺🥺🥺
oh and because it was such a random reveal, there were a LOOOT of "so everyone just knows each other in their childhood huh" memes because. of course there’d be. to this day this is an on-going thing in enstars stories kGMSKGS akira: everyone is childhood friends with each other, actually . alongside with "and eichi STILL says chiaki isn’t his friend after all of this huh. ok dude if you say so" tweets. so true. sooo true. and one more i remember is people joking that "oh my god maybe akira saw all our theories and decided fuck it i’ll make it a reality actually"
but yeah overall it really was mainly because of the "chiaki", also the villain vs hero stuff from main story and april fools… and all the stories they had that kept making people eager to Know… since well, it’s eichi we’re talking about here. it was so intriguing to read into why he’d keep showing bias towards chiaki and ryuseitai time and time again, despite initially mentioning how exhausting and loathesome heroes are. and likewise, chiaki having a pretty good relationship with the guy most of the cast deems a villain was so "Tell Us More" energy
so it was VERY VERY VEEERY satisfying to find out that we were NEVER wrong to see something in that, even if the reveal took such a long time to happen!! the most satisfying part of it all was that, just because theories were debunked, didn’t mean their relationship was insignificant… 🥺 and now we’ve come this far with them… they’ve become so so significant that we’re even likely to get an eichi look back gacha uuuu 🥺🥺🥺🥺
this tweet i made after ep:link came out in september 2019 is making me laugh bad though, so i’d like to share it (context: ep:link had a small part where eichi mentions he invited chiaki to join starpro LOL)
" fellas, is it weird to call the person you knew in your childhood and then met again in high school after he saved you in a livehouse and visited you in the hospital, who you then helped keep his unit alive, and then eventually helped with his career too, a ’friend’ "
i feel like the reveal that stella maris chiaki CG was towards eichi all along had that similar level of "?!!?@?!?@?!@?!?" as saga, like "OHHHH MY GOD THEY REALLY ARE THAT RELEVANT!!!!", so that was nice to experience again for veterans, and i hope new chiaki and eichi fans also had fun experiencing it GKMGSKGE because yeah i’d say that that was pretty similar to how it felt back then too… just like, oh my god akira is not fucking around with this friendship!!! LET’S GOOOOO
i wrote this in a daze so i can only hope it makes some sense… thank you for asking!!! enstars history (as a game) is fun… i love how you can constantly be part of the journey to discover new, big things, it’s just sooo exciting
if you’re interested in more fandom history, i’m compiling all my answers in the fandom history category ❤️