In fairness, the act would have required such an epic incarnation of Yui's famous fits of monofocus that she might not remember that she made them.

>Also, the design is so
>high-maintenance that they're essentially mannequins at this point.

Now that's just not fair. They're perfectly capable of subbing for her on a day-to-day basis. They don't have her superpowers, but they can perfectly execute her everyday core competencies of napping, snacking, taking incomplete notes, and molesting Azu-nyan.

(Azusa probably has nightmares that begin a lot like the frame shown above. At least she wants to believe they're nightmares. The poor girl is terribly conflicted. Of the five of them, I think she most requires therapy, though on most days it's a coin toss between her and Mugi. :)

Also, I'm reminded of Rimmer's reaction in that one episode of Red Dwarf where they think they've discovered that Lister is a robot. "Who would build such a thing?! What's its purpose? The consumption of the galaxy's chicken vindaloo?!"

--G.
Ui, on the other hand? Delighted.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Speaking of Yui's superpowers, we see in a couple of episodes that she knows how to do the "levitating orange" magic trick. Here a fan artist has taken this notion to its logical conclusion.

I think my favorite part is that Ritsu is paying no attention, although, to judge by the look on Yui's face, Yui might only just have discovered that she can do it, and Ritsu simply hasn't noticed yet.

--G.
"That's incredible, Yui!" "Weeell, not that incredible. I mean it only works on citrus fruits."
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Interesting. I would have assumed that fruitbending was a waterbender variation.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

A) May not be native to Diqiu
B) Are rather heavy for a first-time bender.

Heh, well, we do see in that same episode that, while Yui is quite proficient at levitating tangerines, she has trouble with the weight of a particularly large hassaku orange. :)

--G.
"It's floating!" THUMP "... It's very very heavy."
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Now that you've said that, it's self-evident and possibly an inevitable law of nature that any other band she ends up a member of must be named "Levitating Tangerines".

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

That's presumably her Orbital-style "electronic dance" side band that's basically a duo with Mugi (as opposed to The Tsumugi Kotobuki Project, which is the "band" name for Mugi's weird ambient solo albums). :)

HTT is the kind of band that I can see having a zillion different little side projects as their collective career unfolds, that are mostly permutations of the central lineup with the occasional guest musician or team-up with another band. Sort of the antimatter universe version of Yes (which was a million different bands that all had the same name). Heck, they already had one in high school, YuiAzu, which was Yui and Azusa's somewhat uncreative tag for themselves when they competed in a local talent show as a duo.

Others include:

Yui Hirasawa and her Fun-Loving Friends - Yui's original suggestion for the name of what became HTT (in the manga), adopted later on as a Hindu Love Gods-style joke name for an album she recorded with a different backing band (possibly Love Crysis, the trio who turn up in one of the OVAs and the movie).

Pure ☆ Pure - Mio wanted to call them this (complete with the star symbol). When she starts doing solo bass virtuoso albums à la Stu Hamm, there you go. Ritsu was aghast when this suggestion turned out not to be a joke, so of course she'll be playing drums on those albums and hiding her face in the liner notes photos.

The Girl Gang - Ritsu's original idea, in the English translation; in Japanese it's "Onna-gumi". Interestingly enough, this turns up as the name of an actual band in the "college" extension of the manga (where it gets translated as "Only Girlz" so their "OG" logo still makes sense), but I'm not really a big fan of that volume, so I prefer to think of it as "the time Ritsu wanted to do a straight-up punk album and the others didn't want to confuse their fans." :)

Q-Model - Fictional band name under which they did the music for the cult classic 2417 computer roleplaying game Red Sands Lullabye (which was sort of what Full Throttle would've been like if it was set in the Si Wong Desert and the B-plot had involved warring samurai clans). Willfully weird roots rock with an ironic idol edge. Yui playing an electric Dobro through a vocoder, Mugi gratuitously abusing her Triton's sampling capabilities, Azusa on tenor sax, Mio on the guitarrón mexicano, Ritsu playing a harmonica through a mic hooked up to a wah pedal, and a vintage TR808. Sort of sounds like what would happen if the Gipsy Kings lost a drinking contest with Puffy AmiYumi.

Rocket Pencil - Basically what you get if you combine Azusa's other band, the Green Leaf Girls, with Hōkago Tea Time and tour-bus sleep deprivation.

Ui Hirasawa and the Bumbling Sisters - Derived from the TV show's version of Yui's first suggestion. Tongue-in-cheek fandom tag given to a popular unofficial bootleg of a live show they did with Ui filling in for Yui - the irony thus being that it did not actually feature Ui Hirasawa's bumbling sister.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

(Image: HTT's first VH1 Behind the Music episode, ca. 2430. The band members, now veteran rockers in their mid-30s, hardly seem to have changed at all apart from their slightly-more-grown-up clothes. They're all seated together on one sofa. Left to right: Mugi, Yui, Azusa, Mio, Ritsu. Azusa is holding a copy of Heavy Citrus's one eponymous album on LP, with the four-disc gatefold open so that the camera can see the complete cover art. They're all leaning in close and regarding the interior spread with identically rueful "what were we thinking" expressions - except Mugi, who beams happily at the reminder of her proudest single achievement, Disc 3 Side 2's 24½-minute keyboard solo.)

RITSU
We played that whole thing live once...

AZUSA
(nodding, her eyes still on the album)
Once.

RITSU
I couldn't feel my hands for two whole days afterwards.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

"Yui Hirasawa is many things," Mio remarked to the Rolling Stone interviewer some years later, "but an impressionist painter is not one of them."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.