What does it mean to be hyperfixated on something? In all simplicity, I would consider it coming to love a piece of art on a personal, special level of depth for an extended period of time. Appreciating something within a limit of time before moving on with your life or getting to love another thing is quite the specific process. It hits you out of nowhere, at one point when you're watching a series, reading a book, listening to a song, viewing a stage play...or maybe something even simpler like a sport or handcraft of sorts. You suddenly get struck with the thought "Damn. I love this thing so much", unable to stop thinking about it for several days. You show this to your friends, recommend them it, maybe purchase merchandise or equipment, get to know the authors or idols of that speciic thing, passionately immersing yourself in it.
This is what happened with me several times, however for me the pattern has been broken for once. first the game of ISaT, then OMORI and then Deltarune. These lasted about a month, but only playing the full game in 4 days or so and then the entire week after that was the most intense. I proceeded to view all extra content, engaged in fandom, thought up AU's and fics, extensively thought about the characters and motives and endings all the way through, non stop. Theorizing on Reddit. Even drawing fanart or supporting the creator in some way. CRYING to these pieces of fiction, at first glance simple works of art that still evoked unusual emotions in me. It is no different this time: ladies and gentlemen, welcome abord Alien Stage.
For those who don't know: Alien Stage is...- well, practically a franchise at this point - (mainly) a series of animated music videos ade by VIVIMOS and produced by STUDIO LICO. The premise? In a futuristic world somewhere in the galaxy, human kids are raised to be idols and battle against each other in a 1v1 structured contest called Alien Stage. Every song and music video associated with it explores the backstories of one specific character and their relationships, while simoultaneously advancing the story and the contest itself. So...again, this sounds very simple, where is the hype coming from? Wait, am I late to the party?...Nah, never gatekeep your favourites.
King Yaoi the 3rd
The answer is...yuri. Yaoi. Doomed. Okay, no, really. Well...first, this is a series you can watch in 45 minutes. The songs are pretty much masterclass, so is the wicked story. It is heartbreaking, it will twist your organs and shatter your heart into shreds. Are you ready? Cool, now get on YouTube and watch Alien Stage in full, I am sure you will become indoctrinated and start learning Hangeul like m- anyway...
So it's like...a Stage but Alien?
We'll be looking at two relationships here: MiziSua and IvanTill. Mizi and Sua are two girls hopelessly in love; their relationship is pretty much codependant. They debut in ROUND 1 of Alnst (abbreviation), singing a duet of "My Clematis", which by the way made me cry. Now, you won't know this in the first episode, but Mizi and Sua are breaking the rules. The songs should be sang in turns, giving the judges enough time to rate them. With this, Mizi and Sua hope to cause a tie and make none of them die in return. That's now how the game works however, and Sua ends up dead, but not for the reason you might think. Later in the series (KARMA) Mizi reveals through a monologue that Sua had been in fact holding herself back, giving lines to Mizi and singing in lower tones herself. Mizi also later reveals that she's seen Sua rehearse her own death every night...ouch. Sua sacrificed her life not just for Mizi to keep on living, but also because she had no other reason to live other than Mizi. But, logically, shouldn't that make Mizi lose her reason to live as well? Codependency...to conclude, I love MiziSua, because they're a tragically beautiful representation of doomed yuri. I also adore Sua and that's the reason I could see Mizi as a kinnie.
Till is introduced in ROUND 2. He also breaks the rules of the contest, but in a different way: he studied music beforehand, being able to play guitar, and wrote his own song that his opponent (Acorn) wasn't prepared for, and thus couldn't even try to join him there. It is also revealed that Till is in love with Mizi, although the kids raised in Anakta Garden can only know so much about their romantic feelings...Ivan on the other hand is introduced in ROUND 3, by absolutely dominating his opponent with his vocals, so much so that he didn't need to cheat and won fair and square. However...things get complicated, because Ivan is in turn in love with Till, thus the nickname of King Yaoi the 3rd. The comment down below sums it up the best:
The ending to their relationship - unfulfilled, because Till only ever looked at Mizi and never at Ivan - comes in ROUND 6. The emotional setting of this is legendary. Ivan sacrifices himself for Till, but not in the way you might think. We already know that Ivan is superior to pretty much the rest of the cast in vocals, so Till would never have the chance to win. To add to the pile, Till in fact gave up singing about halfway. Ivan's sacrifice is thus kind of tricky - he first forces a kiss onto Till, and then pretends to strangle him so the guards would eliminate him for violence. That's what happens - but even now, Ivan knows his feelings won't be reciprocated, even if for once he did make Till look at him. Oh my god, I can't do this anymore...I'm tearing up.
I first got into Alien Stage through a Polish anime site on the 15th of August. I watched most of it in one day, but I completely couldn't understand anything. I couldn't delve into the meaning, the themes, motives, or the characters myself. I didn't understand any of the plot: all I knew was that MiziSua was a lesbian ship...poor me. Oh, good thing to note here that Alnst is a Korean production, hence not an anime in any way. I went back to it on the 23rd when I was searching for an anime to watch. I watched the series in 1 day, all of it. ROUND 5 got me invested, with the song "Ruler of My Heart" tickling my entire body. By the end of that song I knew I had found a masterpiece. I'm not going to talk about it here, but it is groovy: and so is the storytelling. Yes, I think Alnst is special in the way that it manages to convey a significant portion of its storytelling using music alone. Also, all of the VA' voices are hot, I'm obsessed with Sua's and Luka's until this day. For the past 3 days in fact I have been doing nothing but rewatching and relistening to all of the songs, again and again. I found the artbook and I'm considering ordering it. I even started learning Hangeul for fun, and now I can read it for the most part. It's crazy how this one thing has led me to so many others.
So, what is the message of this post? Well, do they need one? If I had to give one though, I would say: humans cannot love without exploiting each other, but that doesn't mean it's not love at all. Cherish those you love, because one day you might not see them after waking up.
Genuinely funny. Blink, gone!