hello! yes, it is what the japanese text says, but not with the meaning you may think...!

gravure modeling refers to photoshoots specifically to make the model look attractive and cool. for examples, here's a gravure photoshoot for leo's VA, asanuma, and here's all sorts of male idols doing gravure photoshoots (scroll down until you see photos of male idols with a red price tag underneath).

it's essentially photoshoots of the model looking cool or handsome specifically to appeal to the viewers. it's why midori vents about it in motor show, snail's pace 5, because he tends to feel conflicted when his looks stand out more than who he is inside, as he doesn't feel like that "cool-looking model" side represents who he truly is. it's also a recurring topic in his FS1 and FS2 !!

thank you for asking, i should have added a translation note about this earlier... 😓 so moving forward i'll be having a translation note for gravure modeling any time it appears , and it's also been added to my published translations o7

yess it's minimal but midori and sora have interacted! the list would be:

• home party (! era), that one was sort of minimal for the two but it's a cute story and they play games together with tori and shinobu

• the rest is !! era. a big important one is midori's 3* fs story, Making-100-Friends-Project, where hinata hangs out with midori to be friends and then calls over mitsuru and sora. i absolutely adore this midori story and it's a must read!!

• next is The Young Master's Moving Out (yuzuru 3* fs story), where they're shown to play a game together (with tori). super cute!!

• there's Our Trip In The Future, featuring 2-A class (which has sora and midori)

• another cute short one is Tiny Universe with hinata too (just the first half)

• midori randomly gets dragged into ibara lecture in Mellow Tactician (ibara fs2 5* story), but interactions are minimal there

• another story that has 2-A (therefore midori and sora) is tsukasa's fs2 5*, A Friend, A Detour, A Way Home, but interactions are extremely minimal

my top three picks for midori's cross scout were hinata, sora, and hiiro (in no particular order), and i had some "if only" choices like mitsuru or mao, which i just knew wouldn't happen as he's already been a 5* pair with them before LOL. and i was really shocked to find out it's midori/sora because i thought they wouldn't repeat unit combinations (since natsume/shinobu happened). i'm super duper happy 🥺🥺

i'm not sure if the new characters are even counted for cross scouts (though it'd be cool), but i'm also excited for the eventual midori and yume story and i can't wait for it... i just know they'll get something together eventually even if not right now!! (also i think your message got cut off at the end?)

i think mika_enstars got to answering this here, so i'll add the translation of when he mentions it in the mini talk ♪

from the 2016 mini talk for scroll of the elements:

"Oh, Anzu! You've come at just the right time!
Anzu, there's Carranger, Ninninger, Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya...
And there's Henshin Ninja Arashi too; so, which one would you like to learn about!?"

-You know so much, don't you?

"Ah, no, this is actually basic knowledge...
Pretty Cure? Anzu, so you're more familiar with the magical girl shows, huh?
It's broadcasted after tokusatsu shows, so I've also seen it before."

as a bonus; not fully related to pretty cure per se, but anzu mentions magical girl shows again to him in his 2023 birthday:

"Ha ha ha!! ☆ Morisawa Blue has arrived~!
Fufu, just kidding. Getting a present made me over excited~♪
It's such an impressive-looking brooch, that it could be used as a hero transformation item."

-Rather, it's more like…

"It's more like an item from a show for girls? True, its design is probably much closer to the ones you see in those shows.
For those shows, the catchphrase when they transform is different from heroes, right? I wonder what sort of catchphrase I should go with?"

these are remanents of the way ryuseitai used to refer to each other in the early stories (particularly 2015-2016), and so you'll likely find them in the very old story fan translations or in old physically released content (like the first ryuseitai CD drama from 2015). it's not just shinkai-san, there was also:

• shinobu used to call midori "takamine-dono" (was in hero show and the drama CD)
• tetora used to sometimes call chiaki "leader" instead of "taichou" (bits of this still exists in ! era main story, and drama CD)
• tetora used to call shinobu "shinobu-kun" from as early as piratefes, a story set in summer
• midori used to call chiaki "taichou" in hero show and drama CD, "buchou" in 2015 sportsfes
• shinkai-san used to be in hero show too
• there were likely more so this is just a rough list

it seems that eventually, enstars finally settled on how they want each ryuseitai member to refer to each other, so a lot of the stories got their namings adjusted in-game after months of their release. now in-game, hero show has shinobu say "midori-kun", all of tetora's "shinobu-kun"'s that chronologically happen before repayment festival were changed to "sengoku-kun" since that's when tetora consciously makes an effort to switch namings, and so on and so forth.

but again, there's still some small remains of the initial namings not just in old fan translations, like the physically released drama CD from 2015, or the first main story of ! era.

as for why the characters used to call each other with those names at first, i'm not sure because i came to the fandom in late 2016 🤔 i guess they felt like it worked at the time enstars was released, but as the characters got more depth and shape, they decided it'd make more sense to settle on certain other namings.

i can see why they'd change takamine-dono for example, because it is strange that shinobu would call midori that when he calls tetora "tetora-kun" (and eventually it's established in sparkly first years that shinobu and midori got along as early as they first joined school, so "midori-kun" definitely fits a lot more). and although "shinkai-san" is polite and suits tetora's respectful way of speaking, it sounds more distant than "shinkai-senpai" (which more clearly refers to him as a senpai from the same school).

for midori, maybe they figured it'd make most sense that he doesn't keep switching between "taichou", "buchou", and "morisawa-senpai" all depending on where he is with chiaki (unit, club, or any other situation), and made him settle with morisawa-senpai. on that note, hero show has a moment where midori calls him "buchou", and then chiaki tells him to call him "taichou" when they're doing unit activities, not "buchou"... so i like to imagine midori got tired of constantly needing to switch depending on the place and went for something easier. but this is completely speculation!! most of these namings got silently changed so we're prooobably meant to see most of it as "that was how they were always referring to each other from the beginning" LOL

hello!! mizusaba's gender is not indicated in the japanese text. they're never referred to with any gendered terms, and they also don't use any gendered terms about themself either. this is what we know:

• mizusaba speaks similarly to ibuki (using wa~ as a first-person pronoun and "sa~" or tildes at the end of their sentences)

• at one point, kanata compares mizusaba to madara (when mizusaba explains their presence in konata's life, kanata says it's "like what mikejima was to me in the past")

• when kanata greets mizusaba in okinawan by saying "haitai", mizusaba replies back with the same greeting, then informs kanata that he doesn't have to speak okinawan with mizusaba. "haitai" is the greeting used by okinawan women, whereas "haisai" is the greeting used by okinawan men. since kanata was first to use the greeting, it's not clear if this was an error on the writer's part or not

all in all, unlike other prominent NPCs that were introduced in climax stories, there's no true clear indicator of their gender. JP fandom noticed the ambiguity, and have been debating about mizusaba's gender based on the information we have. this is likely why you're seeing "brother" and "sister", because technically, it's all up in the air right now

at first, my tl used he/him pronouns for mizusaba because of the madara comparison, but then i realized it was entirely assumptive on my part, so i've changed to they/them so that people are free to interpret mizusaba as they like. the JP fandom have been doing the same and interpreting however best suits their vision of mizusaba. i hope this helps clear it up!

i think they're an interesting dynamic! i like tetora's dynamics and i think he's very versatile and works with many people, i'm glad to see that akira is willing to expand his circle as always and show us more new sides to him. i love the way ibuki brings out a more serious, dependable and confident tetora.

i love how his interaction with ibuki is entirely due to who tetora is as a person (choosing to take down crimpro for his own self-worth), which makes his relationship with him unique and special.... vs something like tetora vs rinne, where a lot of people feel complex feelings about rinne for various reasons, and tetora is just one of the many who do. so i'm a big fan of how their dynamic exists purely because it's tetora and his own decisions and lifestyle.

all in all very excited for what new things we'll get to see for tetora through this. like wow, i can't believe akira used ibuki's idol story 2 to tell us new karate club lore LOL that gives me high hopes for their future content!! i also wonder how much it'll influence ibuki's side and his character development. lots of things to be excited about