I think it's good and healthy that I only really fw a handful of the best and coolest ENG Blue Lock fanfriends and otherwise exclusively interact with JP fandom, because every now and again I'll run across something that speaks of a fandom environment in ENG spaces so completely alien from what I'm familiar with that it leaves me stunned.
Like, just to give you an idea: kiis/Kaisagi is, by an INCREDIBLY wide margin, the most popular ship in Blue Lock fandom over here. In doujinshi shops and at events like Comic City Spark and on sites like Pixiv, it outstrips every other ship by MILES. Their book section at publishing shops like Tora no Ana and second-hand shops like K-Books and Lashinbang are MASSIVE, and every single other ship [and I DO mean every single other one- I'm not naming any because I love and respect them and am only saying this to drive home exactly how OP kiis really is] has a noticeably, often dramatically smaller section. Official merch drops featuring Kaiser and Isagi [like the one at Don Quijote] have consistently sold out immediately, and second-hand goods featuring them together are ALWAYS some of the more expensive Blue Lock goods you'll find. This is so reliable, and so well known by the official producers of Blue Lock goods and advertising, that it's common to see ads for a new Blue Lock manga release featuring Kaiser or Kaisagi, even though Kaiser hasn't actually been in the recent books. I wait with baited breath every day for them to finally start including Kaiser in the merch lines, and I'm sure they KNOW people will spend as much as they need to on those gachas so they can get a matching Kaiser and Isagi from the same line, cause I'm NOT the only one who will do it.
With all that in mind, I'm sure you understand now why every time I see someone in the tags here or an author on AO3 saying something in their note about how hated or unpopular kiis is, or how a 'rival' ship is more popular, it COMPLETELY floors me. What a surreal nightmare mirror world to live in, I can't even FATHOM it.
