Well then peeps, the voting has concluded! And in the end… both Minori Kushieda and Chiaki Ōgaki have been removed from the Fictional Guardians lineup. It's unfortunate, but it had to happen for the sake of preserving the story. My apologies to fans of both characters or just Yuru/Laid-Back Camp and Toradora! in general.

But who's gonna take their places?

Well, I've managed to choose an individual from one new anime series, and the other one is from a series that is already represented.

The tanuki beastman from Anima City, Michiru Kagemori from Studio Trigger's BNA: Brand New Animal! While her series may have gotten some criticism for rushing the story into only 12 episodes, and it doesn't look like we'll even get a continuation… she's still a nice character with some diverse powers to boot! With the ability to morph her body to use various animal parts, this tanuki will give the Monokumas a lot of trouble.

Speaking of beasts, she certainly acts like one! Sapphire Birch from the Pokémon Adventures manga managed to defeat every gym leader in the Hoenn region within an 80-day time limit, earning the name of The Conqueror. With Ruby already in the roster, she would make it her mission to find her (maybe more than) friend. A third (counting Junko, who's in training) Pokémon user may seem redundant, but she's more of a battler than Ruby is so…

I'd also like to talk about future heroes and villains in the story. Including the two new female characters, this is current lineup:

Guardians:

Ruby (Pokémon Adventures): The Charmer

Junko Konno (Zombie Land Saga): The Showa (Zombie) Idol

Linhardt von Hevring(Fire Emblem: Three Houses): The Healer

Bucky Barnes (Marvel Cinematic Universe): The Veteran

Blaze The Cat (Sonic The Hedgehog): The Fire

Yamcha (Dragon Ball): The Wolf

Komaru Naegi (Danganronpa): The Heart

Michiru Kagemori (BNA: Brand New Animal): The Beast

Sapphire Birch (Pokémon Adventures): The Conqueror

Just gonna come out and say it right now, there will be three more Guardians in the story.

There will also be a few support characters who won't go out into the field and fight like them, one of them being Kotaro Tatsumi from Zombie Land Saga (probably shouldn't have included him on the original roster).

As for the members of Team Zetsubou, I'll be including four generals and three main members. Monaca and Ultron will be the big villains of this arc, leading the four generals to conquer the fictional multiverse. However, there will be another one lurking. You've also seen both Mercenary Tao and Agatha in their general roles (the latter with just a quick preview in Chapter 1), yet two more are looking to give the Guardians trouble.

Well, that's gonna be it for now. I'm working very hard at making this upcoming chapter and the rest of chapter one of Epicenter, so don't expect either to come out until the end of this month or next month. Hope y'all are looking forward to seeing them though! See you next time, peeps!