>>83657986serious answer from a phase fan with holdups.
unironically
>>83658582 is the answer.
the wagon circling is so strong because the company spent so much time as the underdog and because for the most part fishman is actually doing a good job.
it's that perfect middle ground of
1, audience size never getting so large as to make the company seem like it's not allowed to make mistakes, resulting in apologism for small mistakes; literally "he's just a little guy" making people more likely to handwave slights
and
2, emotional investment due to rooting for the underdog who got where they are on a meager budget with fewer "frills" like excess model changes
the result is shit like rowling lawnmower (using rie as the first example just because you did) but any number of other bantam to middleweight phase yabs get swept under the rug so efficiently.
idol never had the emotional investment phase does because aviel pushed it in with money, inorganically. no underdog power means people are less willing to run defense for a moneybags (ex-)CEO.
i'm pro-phase, generally speaking, so i can sympathize with parts of it because a couple of the girls i want to do well and i see them working hard on a tiny budget, but the Emperor's New Model is also really embarrassing these days in indefensible ways.
