With Lunar New Year only a short while away, Animalia and its colonies (mainly Heiya Island) All the tiger Animalians were doubling down on their training. There were still a few surprises here and there to keep things from getting boring while waiting.
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While most registered competitors weren't inclined to drop out, the most noteworthy case was Shiva and Durga, though why would make more sense later. During one training session, Durga started giving birth to her cubs, much to everyone's surprise. Though there was some confusion to whether or not this was their original litter or a new one, though fortunately there would be an official intro during the coverage of the Lunar New Year Celebrations. But unfortunately, this would mean that Durga and Shiva would have to pull out and not be able to compete, much to Durga's disappointment.
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Following the trend of overweight people moving to Animalia and its colonies to combat obesity, as well as the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations, a good portion of overweight people had applied for tiger conversions. While a good portion of those were for more well-known subspecies of tigers, there were a few unusual conversion requests that caused some raised eyebrows. The biggest, and most well-known, example of this was the "white tiger" conversion. While Steve and Ava, the first white tiger Animalians, were flattered by this, but didn't know how to react to being a "fad" conversion.
Another thing that resulted from the surge in tiger conversions was an unofficial ban against new tigers being allowed to compete in the Lunar New Year competition. While there had been some protests at this, it was more understandable once more information about the ban came out.
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What was probably the biggest surprise was the appearance of Gekigami. While he was recognized as one of Ammy's councilors, there were more people who didn't know about his inspiration. Overall, it was a surprise to see that Gekigami was another white tiger with red, lightning bolt-shaped stripes as well as a large, ceremonial bow that was quite functional for people who doubted. For the "stans" and hardcore fans of the Okami series, they were a little disappointed that he didn't pull the bow back with his tail, even though that was not how it worked, even in nature.
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While the Lunar New Year competition would be the special event that would hold the most attention, there was still plenty of things going on that were part of the celebrations anyway.