hi anon sorry for leaving you hanging i wanted to read happy enjoy music first anyway the short answer is saki.

the long answer is that i debated between ichisaki for a while bc it's definitely not honashiho (stay safe). but i think ichika has more coherent character arcs that she follows and i can't believe i'm saying this but her obsession with miku partially carries it so good thing she has it

anyway speaking of coherent character arcs. saki. the problem with saki is that her character has such a strong foundation but they put it all into stella and then had to find something else for her for the rest of the story. following "girl has been hospitalised a lot since childhood and feels isolated and like she's missing out" -> "she overexerts herself while trying to catch up on everything she missed" is very easy and natural and i'm glad that stella was so early so that saki could learn to appreciate her time with her friends and heal from her loneliness in the hospital. it also gave us precious memories which is one of my favourite mixed events ever so that was awesome. it's also touched on in a few card stories, but it's delegated as a few small incidents instead of a continuing big character arc.

which is good because obviously that can't be something that you touch on every event so they gave saki a songwriting arc that has been... going. unnamed harmony was about saki struggling with writing a song and realising that she wants to write a song for leoni to cheer them up in the end. nsnf is her wanting to connect with the audience in the livehouse and using her own experiences to write a song that will reach them. then in further leoneed events she expresses wanting to comfort people with her song, and this is cemented further in her fes story where she reads comments on their songs about how others have been comforted by her songs and reaffirms her desire to keep doing it.

and like okay cool it's very sweet that after having experienced so much pain and loneliness, saki can draw on these experiences to comfort others who are going through similar situations. but after her fes card they just… leave it there? parallel harmonies doesn't further this arc, focusing on the disagreement part instead of having ichisaki say anything actually important. but i digress. i do see why and how her fes card was kind of the wrapup of her relationship with songwriting and what she wants to do with it, because i don't see how they can really expand it further, but… now what?

the issue that i have with saki's writing is that with every new event they introduce a new conflict or aspect about her that she needs to resolve with no foreshadowing or that only makes sense in retrospect, not in the moment itself. like i can't tell you with full confidence that when they pulled out the get over it plot i went "ohhh it makes so much sense that saki is so anxious", at the time i thought they just made honaichishiho so agreeable just so saki had something to worry about by herself. it's something you have to just accept in the moment because while it makes sense that saki's the least committed to the entire pro band thing, it hasn't been Very foreshadowed because in the events before this she's been very agreeable with everything, even pulling all nighters to write songs.

parallel harmonies was even more confusing because nothing about saki herself changes, in fact i think it’s ichika's character that gets developed more because she has the entire talk about wanting to be like the vsingers. saki just shits herself and is sad and ultimately she gets to be the one deciding how they write the song which good for her i guess.

and then in happy enjoy music they introduce a new conflict: saki enjoying a small, more intimate audience over a large audience. i think this is a pretty good direction for her to go in, because it links back to get over it (where she's the most unsure about being in the band for the music) and partially unnamed harmony (where she decides that while she doesn't know exactly how to reach the audience, in the moment she wants to write the song for leoneed). happy enjoy music actually somewhat pulled my opinion of her writing back to the positives, at least for now, but it's the same problem of introducing a conflict in the event itself with very little setup. in the event itself, saki is nervous, she talks to iori, then she decides that the cafe is more fun to perform at and iori implies that there might be issues with that. which is all fine and i like it as setup for future events (my opinion on this might go down depending on how they follow through in the future but for now it's good lol), and i'm sure you can pull very small threads from previous stories that could possibly hint at this, but there's no way anyone could've seen this coming without the benefit of hindsight.

in contrast, honami's arc leads very, very naturally from one event to another. yureru and yuruganu build her up from her main story self to be someone who isn't afraid of speaking up, from standing up to her classmates to her dear childhood friend and finally to shindou, with the stakes behind each one building and being increasingly satisfying when honami gains the courage to speak up. her role as the pillar of the band is also built up, from her literal role as drummer to working to support her friends in yuruganu and emm, culminating in her being the one to hold fast to leoni's beliefs in little bravers and finally becoming the leader. her writing feels very well thought out and her arc is consistent and makes sense.

shiho's arc is also very easy to follow, centring around her struggles with being accepted and loved. styf gives us backstory on why she is she way she is, ano hi shows us that she isn't accepted for who she is, and in leoni she finds that acceptance but struggles with it because she doesn't think she deserves it. from twilight parade to dlf she struggles with accepting their love until finally in resonant town she's so comfortable in it that she can freely talk about it and give advice to an. even though i think her flashbacks are presented kind of awkwardly ultimately they work. my only concern is that they'll run out of ideas for her in future events but considering how she hasn't had a unit focus where she's actively doing things since dlf i think they'll give her something good she's fine.

ichika's writing is a bit more disjointed but her songwriting using miku arc pulls it together in a way, making it more coherent than saki's. she has a little background plot about becoming more like her old self, like in her fes story which i adore. she also has an arc around connecting people with music that has started since lwm, and makes a lot of sense for her considering how she admires miku and credits her with bringing leoneed back together. her relationship with songwriting also has more depth than saki's due to the avenue of virtual singers like in tmwy.

so yeah that's why i think saki's writing is the weakest compared to the rest of leoni. i don't dislike her writing or her character, i love that she gets to reach others with her songs and comfort them after suffering so much in the past. but i just think that they ran out of ideas for her and happy enjoy music is them trying to pull something new together which i appreciate so we will see how her arc goes. if she ever gets another focus event again. hopefully she gets moments in the other events please god.

i'm open to discussion about this, if you disagree i'd love to hear why (i would love to find more reasons to enjoy saki's writing tbh lol) but do direct your asks to my neospring so retrospring doesn't nuke it

https://neospring.org/@starqings

hi anon sorry i took 3 months to reply i didn't want to think. unfortunately i still don't want to think so this answer will be short sorry

(vaguely in order)
ichisaki: some time during middle school/main story because saki wants to check it off her list of things to do and ichika is hopelessly in love
honasaki: probably the first to kiss after whenever they confess. sakis like ok we're dating i get to kiss you now and honami is the one who lets her do it (side note i think honashiho would be disappointed but not surprised to know that ichisaki kissed in middle school LMAO)
shihosaki: almost definitely after honasaki
ichihona: a few days after they start dating honami absentmindedly leans over and kisses ichika and ichikas like ?!,@?#(@#,@(@, and honamis like oh sorry ive wanted to do that for a while it kinda came naturally. ichika blushes a lot
honashiho: honami asks nicely and shiho lets her do it
ichishiho: would take them forever tbh but i think ichika would be doing one of her patented Gay Monologues TM and shihos like i can't not kiss her

also im posting a fic vaguely related to this for polyneed week so look out for that ❤️ ok bye

😭😭😭 no see if they made parallel harmonies about "ichisaki have never disagreed in their life and spiral the second they do" i would've been happy with that bc we see ichika always always trying to make saki happy and caving to her demands (which hnsh also do but icsk have the added context of middle school) so to have them be at odds would be weird for them and open up a new side of their relationship. i was joking about "my girl is mad at me hope i die" but i seriously think they could've pulled it off but Nope its focused on the creative differences rather than the conflict itself. there could've even been a parallel (ha) between honashiho having to work out their differences from the very beginning since their reconciliation but ichisaki not having experience with that and struggling with it. shrugs