Gachiakuta Author Asks Fans Not to Bother Her About Ships
The author of Gachiakuta, Kei Urana, posted a story on Instagram asking fans of the manga to stop coming to her with questions about their headcanons, such as ships and fan theories.
Apparently, in the Gachiakuta fandom there are many fans who take advantage of the fact that the author posts in English and interacts with international fans to ask her about ships and other topics.
I even discovered that the author often does Instagram lives, and there are always Western fans asking about their ships, which must annoy her.
In her Story, the author said:
“From my perspective, this is a common-sense rule. But if nobody says it, things will turn into chaos, so I’ll say it.
If someone brings unofficial settings—or outright incorrect ones—right in front of me and keeps saying, “What do you think about this!? Hey, look at this—what do you think!? Hey! Hey!” over and over again, of course I’m going to reject it.
Maybe people have forgotten, but I am part of the official side of GACHIAKUTA itself.
What frustrates me is not the unofficial settings themselves—it’s the people who throw childish tantrums about them.”
The reactions on the Gachiakuta subreddit were positive from what I could see. Here are some comments and reactions:
“Nowadays it’s unusual. People consider their theories and ‘their own interpretations’ extremely valid, to the point of throwing tantrums when you say they made it all up in their heads.”
“I feel like younger internet generations have lost sight of the ethics of fanfiction and fan culture.”
“Urana presents these characters and this story to us, and people try to force their own interpretation of these characters and this story down the throat of the person who provided the material to the public, and they try to manipulate it.”
One fan listed some “stupid controversies” that the Western Gachiakuta fandom has created, all of them recent:
“I swear to God, every month there’s a new stupid outrage on Twitter about her. The last five that come to mind are:
– Crazy fans asking about their favorite ships during her Instagram lives and then throwing tantrums when she denies them.
– People spreading false information saying she suffered from a chronic overwork illness on the level of Togashi, when in reality she only had a high fever.
– People getting angry because a white person played Corvus in a Gachiakuta musical in Japan.
– People using the volume covers as backgrounds for their original characters even though she asked them not to do that.
– When the anime was announced, she got upset because people were comparing her to Ohkubo.”
According to a tweet from a fan who watched one of Kei Urana’s live streams, fans kept bothering her by constantly asking about ships. It got to the point where she said “I don’t support that ship,” referring to the ship between Jabber and Zanka.
It seems that the Western Gachiakuta fandom has become a problem.