Livestream Summary & Rambling: Ange Katrina (1) Social Awkwardness
I usually write wall of text in Discord both in ID Discord and EN Discord so I figured during the time when the chat is not talking about Sanbaka, I should just start fangirling in my own blog instead of disturbing the flow of conversation in the chat. And so this section is born.
This time, I wanna talk about Ange Katrina, one of Nijisanji livers that I support. I just wanna talk about her struggles of broadening her circles. Warning, this will be quite a long blog post.
This topic is a recurring topic and is quite a common knowledge for FCL* but lets set the starting point of this blog in Sanbaka's free talk stream on 11 Oct 2019, when the topic of "I dont know how to be close to kouhai" came up. Ange, being very open in her many free talk, had often talked of how she is 人見知り (awkward to stranger or suffer from stranger anxiety) and also a コミュ障 (having bad communication skill). During sanbaka half anniversary, Lize said she had difficulty being friends with kouhai or connecting to them, wondering on how to create "opportunities" to actually strike conversation or begin interaction. Ange, although at first giving inputs, also shared kind of the same sentiment. They also shared their common points on how hard it is to chat with others, thinking way too deep when it is simply replying to text chats. For Ange, typing chats are harder because one cannot see the expression or intonation of the words, thus she s always nervous about how it would be perceived and so on (afraid of sounding too distant, too close, too annoying, etc). the talk proceeded to how hard it is to even begin. Inui then lectured them for it.
After that stream, Ange had a free talk stream where she talked of how there weren't many livers that strike conversation with her or try to interact with her and she wondered if she appeared to be unapproachable (sorry, I forget which one of the free talks where she talked about this). Ange felt that she needed to broaden her circle and get rid of her awkwardness. Thus, she tried to challenge herself and did her totsumachi stream (stream where she opened a lobby and said anyone can come in during then and have conversation with her). She was determined to not have any of the Sanbaka members to help her.
During the totsumachi on Jan 18 2020, you can hear how nervous she was. Before the stream she also prepared "topic deck", a selection of topics to throw into the conversation to make the conversation flowing and make the mood better (unfortunately among them was the topic of the baby rattles she received for her birthdays from fans. The baby rattles kind of a "success" as a topic when she was drunk-calling Matsukai Mao for the first time so she thought it was a good idea. It was not.). During the first two guests she was extremely nervous that she felt she had failed and it hurt her mentally. However, I think it is nice to see how she interact with people whom she just talked to the first time (Kanda came in when she was still preparing her deck, leading her to be taken unprepared, and after that she was nervous af during the talk with Sukoya).
Around the period of this totsumachi, Ange's circle (people she often interact and collab with) other than Sanbaka (Lize Helesta and Inui Toko, whom she said are already like family to her), are SKB-bu (Gundou Mirei, Rindou Mikoto, and Suzuka Utako), Kanae, and Nui Sociere. You can even check out the video log and see who she has ever collab without the help of one or both of Sanbaka members until this period.
In her talk around christmas and new year, it was obvious that despite being acquainted to them, she was still only really comfortable with Sanbaka (she said she only sent holiday greetings to family and Sanbaka, but to no one else, until the chat asked her if she should sent one to Sociere, which she then did). Even with SKB-bu, the first SKB-bu's stream was actually a bit aiming at Ange's awkwardness. The others suggested, in order to get closer with each other, why don't they make a rule of talking in informal Japanese (they also have alcohol included in the mix). Mikoto-sama noted how the rule would be especially hard for Ange, as among the 4 only Ange was the one strictly using only formal Japanese with them. She managed to get over that one with the help of alcohol in her system, but she obviously reverted back to her usual formal Japanese while talking to them in their other collab.
Some might ask, what about Belmond Banderas? Interaction with Belmond Banderas happened after Mario Kart tournament in late December 2019, where they ended at the same 11th place with the same point, at which point Ange said "lets teetee together" in her stream, prompting clips to come out, which Belmond then confusedly RT'd. Ange, on Twitter, came out and teased him on it by playing aggresively flirty approach. In her free talk Ange then said how they both had never talked to each other at all, or even interacted at all, and how funny that their first interaction had to be that. Their first interaction only really happened during the totsumachi itself. It was the first time they ever talked to each other, and the topic was about Belmond protesting to Ange about her approach, that it make it hard for him to actually reacting to it and that his Marshmallow is flooded now thanks to her (Ange continued the charade, which she then said in her next free talk how she was surprised Belmond actually quite an easy fellow to collab with as Belmond answered her flirty approach by "punching her back"/"shoving her away", which make it easy to create a comedic flow for streaming).
The next notable person would be Matsukai Mao, whom Ange managed to talk to a bit after Christmas because she drunk-call Mao really late at night and found Mao to be a fun person to talk to. Mao also "punching her back" at her approaches (her flirts). After Mao, in much lesser frequency, there is Shiina Yuika, because Ange really likes Shiishii (and Shiishii, too, often shoved her away whenever she pulled her flirty moves again, which Ange finds cute and fun). Other than that, when Zepp tour was on schedule, Ange managed to meet with zepp team (Belmond and Sasaki included) and thus she managed to bond with them too. Ange said in her free talk that she finally managed to see Sasaki as a friend, no longer friend of a friend (because Sasaki is close to Lize. You can say she knows Sasaki by extension at first). Kanae is another person Ange is notably close with, calling Kanae her "rival" and they often played together in a unit "Angels". Kanae also helped Ange trained for Mario Kart tournament, albeit in rather sparta style.
Among these persons she is close with, the only ones she ever mentioned to have really interacted off streams for personal reasons (not related to streaming) are Sanbaka, Nui, Matsukai, Kanae, and Mikoto-sama. With Nui Sociere, their first duo collaboration was their yume onna talk, which involved alcohol that helped Ange in easing her nervousness. The streams went on well and they got along extremely well together, teasing each other off streams and sharing LINE account (where they throw teasing taunts at each other as jokes). Sociere is probably someone who is evidently quite close to and can interact naturally without using strictly formal speaking outside of Sanbaka.
With Matsukai, Ange said several times she expressed her frustations or asked for consolation, such as when she fell while wearing her new clothes and deeply hurt her knees when she fell to the ditch. She also asked Matsukai to give her some support when she was nervous before stream.
With Kanae, the off stream talks about them revolves games and also voice pack, where Ange wrote the script for Kanae's January voice pack. They also joked around, involving Kanae tricking the f out of Ange. It appears they talked a lot about games, even if it doesn't have anything to do with streaming (such as them talking about Tarkov, which both dont stream at all).
With Mikoto-sama, Ange explained her nervousness upon talking with her off streams, which was also confirmed by Mikoto-sama. In her own stream, Mikoto-sama said Ange remained talking in formal form, super nervous, and on edge even after several times of phone calls. In Mikoto-sama's 20 persons Totsumachi, Ange came. There, you can hear Ange's nervousness and them talking about how Ange is always nervous despite their very frequent interaction.
Mikoto-sama has been asking Ange to meet up numerous times, which Ange always run away from. You can hear the conversation during their Animal Crossing collaboration. The story of this interaction continued even to SKB-bu and some other occassions when they collab or partly during their each other's free talk when they talked of episodes about each other (Mikoto-sama noting "advancement" such as Ange slipping non formal talk once in a while, which makes her happy, or Ange saying how she had been running away from Mikoto-sama or wish Mikoto-sama would stop her 'alluring' approach off streams. They also shared miscellaneous topic together, such as sending each other manga suggestions)
So far to this section, I think you can already note how Ange often appears hesitant and awkward in conversation with people she isnt acquainted with (or even those she is already acquainted with to a degree). Covid Pandemic happened and the lockdown was also being applied to Tokyo. Ange noted how she felt lonely with the depleting human interaction. Here is where the "recent" thing that I want to really talk about starts.
Ange continued to challenge herself to interact with others she wasn't really close with. However, it did not always go so well.
In this zatsudan, Ange talked more of her social anxiety episodes in her several previous collab streams. First was the Free Talk King Grand Prix. This large collab was filled with people Ange has never really interacted with before such as Gilzaren, Elu, Nagao Kei (except Joe Rikiichi, which she has collabed once before). She said she was uncharacteristically late for 5 minutes for the meeting. Usually she is always on time and she always come well prepared with conversation deck and so on, also finding the right timing to join the meeting, but now she missed it all. She find it extremely hard to get on the flow of the conversation, panicking, and nervous even until the stream finally began. Her head was so full up with everything she said it was just painful.
The next was the Joshikai (girls meeting) with Hima, Sasaki, and Hoshikawa. In here too, there were times silence came up between them during the preparation of the stream and she was restless with the silence. Ange said she was not particularly bad with silence, there are even people she feels comfortable with to share silence (such as Sanbaka, again), but this silence gave her anxiety and when she tried to think of anything or throw something into the silence the result was not that well. She noted how Hima helped, being a really communicative person as she is. Despite that she still struggled before the stream went on.
Ange then also explained her time when she was working as an editor in a fashion magazine in Tokyo: her feeling extremely out of place, and her inability to interact with her coworkers. Episodes such as trying to not being "too otaku" with coworkers who asked if she is "otaku" (thinking of "middle" answers such as answering One Piece when talked about manga and answering Sanji as the character she likes the most instead of the more minor character ones), in the end Ange said the period was really painful. despite it giving her many work experienes. She talked of how she was unable to find any friend, how everyone around her living in a different world, and how there was no Lize there to support her. With this, she ended up dropping the job and moved back to Helesta and work as freelance alchemist.
Another episode of her social anxiety going rampant was in this zatsudan. She said for some reason her communication skill is usually okay during stream but failed her off stream. She said again how her social anxiety is painful to her, and how at times it came up as really, really bad episodes. In the period before the stream, Ange was extremely busy with work (both in and out of Nijisanji, especially out of Nijisanji). Ange said in that period probably overworking make her decision making ability turned wonky, in which there was a time she decided to go into Nijisanji group chat filled with kouhai at one night in an extremely exhausted state. She said her tension (energy? excitement?) was up and down, throwing unsuitable words at unsuitable times, making awkward situations, even missing jokes. It was so painful for her that even after she dropped out of conversations, days after then the experience still haunted her. She said what makes it worse was that among the kouhai that day, one of them came and gave her a word of apology, which instead made her feeling even worse, as it was not what she had intended, and that she did not mean to appear unpleasant or distressed in front of them; she said she wanted to say that she was not mad, she was just exhausted and it was all her own fault. Ange pondered if she should have chatted everyone present that time one by one for an apology, but then, that too, did not seem like a good idea.
She also talked of how her anxiety also went off even for the discussion of her cover song with Nui Sociere and Aizono Manami, the Bakunyuu Ondo. She said all that she remembered was how much she struggled to discuss with Aizono, that her communication skill failed her that time. She did not even remember if Sociere was there at that time, and that even if she were, her social anxiety was bad enough at that moment that she was even probably reacted the same to Sociere, among her closest peers in Nijisanji
In the latest stream Fall Guys stream free talk version which continued to her latest free talk stream, Ange said she would like to repent to those episodes and managed to talk to Asahina Akane, giving her late night consultation for around 20 minutes. She appeared really happy about it. However, Ange then revealed how, feeling that she should begin to expand her social circle and try harder, she has decided to finally relent to Mikoto-sama's offer to meet off streams, in real world. Here, Ange explained how she could not even believe she actually promised Mikoto-sama to meet, that she was in such a shock she thought it must be a dream that she promised Mikoto-sama to meet. She said she had nervously doublechecked to Mikoto-sama multiple times, and apologizing because she was afraid she was not the way she appeared on stream, that she might not be as fun off streams. Mikoto-sama offered to make reservation for a restaurant for a dinner after their meeting but Ange was reluctant, saying "what if she did not find me to be fun? that means she would have to keep up with me until the end of dinner...", expressing her nervousness.
Ange also revealed that the only livers that have met her in person in real life are Sanbaka and the Zepp Tokyo team, Belmond and Sasaki, the latter due to concert rehearsals. She wondered why she was able to be okay with Belmond and Sasaki, and realized it was due to her meeting up first with Sanbaka, before meeting with the two. Even for her first meeting with Inui, Ange was really nervous but Lize was there to comfort her and encourage her. Ange also revealed several other episodes with, say, her clients or her managers. In the end she was nervous, saying she'd meet Mikoto-sama in very near future.
Anyway, that's all for now for Ange's social awkwardness episodes. Probably in her next free talk she would talk about the progress with Mikoto-sama. Hopefully, knowing how kind Mikoto-sama is, it can go well and our Ange can finally expand her real life circle to other livers as well (she expressed that she also wants to meet with Sociere in real life, but never have the 'final push' needed for it).
I hope that is informative, despite being really rough in explanations (also my English is really bad lately). Of course, her zatsudan does not only consist of this kind of stuff. Ange is certainly among the most open livers when it come to personal stories, which makes her appears really friendly and approachable to her listeners. This is actually the main attraction to her streams, which mainly consist of free talk where she interacts with her listeners.
This kind of blog post may continue or not depending on mood, so lets not treat it as a regular section as opposed to my usual translations (lol, please do not put expectations on me on this). Cheers!
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*FCL is short for FuruChin Listeners, which means Bare Penis/Exposed Penis Listeners, a nickname to her fanbase. Originally, her fans are called Kenja Kids or philosopher's kids--a reference to Philosopher's Stone, which is close to her job, Alchemist, but the name was kind of discarded after her Outlast stream, when a naked asylum mob running after her with penis dangling, which she said "why are you all chasing after me, are you my listeners?!" and thus FCL name was born.
