Alakou

Alakou is a het ship from Magi between Aladdin and Kougyoku Ren.
==Canon==
The two met under unfortunate circumstances when Kougyoku showed up to save Judar, seemingly "killing" Aladdin's djinn friend Ugo in the process. When the two met later in Sindria, they tried to be civil, although they still held a bit of a grudge against each other.
When Aladdin had grown to the age of 15 and hit puberty, he developed a crush on Kougyoku. However, it's never confirmed if Kougyoku feels the same or not.
==Fandom==
The ship is known as Alakou, or in Japanese, アラ紅 (Arakou). A rarer tag Alagyoku (アラ玉, Aragyoku) also exists.
===Tropes===
A lot of Alakou work includes depictions of Aladdin dealing with his crush and trying to confess to Kougyoku, Kougyoku sometimes being oblivious to it.
===Emergence and controversy===
The Alakou fandom came into existence as suddenly as the ship itself. Aladdin's feelings for Kougyoku were subtly revealed in chapter 315 with no clear hinting beforehands. The previous week, the fandom had been going wild over the canon confirmation of Alimor, and now people were outraged and excited over the canon hinting of a new ship. The ship had not had a fandom before this event.
Over in the Japanese fandom, people jumped on the Alakou train immediately, producing a lot of artwork for it quickly. Alakou is the youngest ship in the fandom that only emerged at a late point in the series when it was close to its ending, and when the peak popularity of the series had already passed. Despite this, by 2021 on Pixiv, the ship has become one of the most active ship tags for the fandom, still being actively updated despite the manga being over. While it is not among the most popular ships in the total amount of fanwork due to its young age, the tag growth has a faster momentum than most Magi ships have anymore.
The reception was a bit different over in the English-speaking fandom. While the ship does have its fans, it is quite controversial in some circles. The reason for this is the seven year age gap between the characters, and the fact that they met when Aladdin was 10 and Kougyoku 17. The suddenness of the reveal of Aladdin's crush was also seen as an issue. Some people are cautiously fine with the ship as long as both characters are portrayed as over 18, while others are against the ship regardless. In the English-speaking fandom the ship has a small amount of art but very few fics.
The popularity and reactions to Alakou were discussed on 4chan in June 2017:
After the release of the final chapter, a 4chan user collected an updated Hall of Anal Devastation about (mainly) Alikou and Hakumor shippers' angry reactions towards Alimor being canon and Alakou being hinted at being canon.
==More Comments==
==Example Fanworks==
===Fanart===
*a long time ago I thought this pairing was cute but it was so minor that I didn’t think it would be possible… by mukei6041 (2016)
*late night alakou feels by 0blue-bird0 (2017)
*外野が騒がしいアラ紅。 by ononr1on (2017)
===Meta===
*Okay, so I’m going to talk a little about AlaKou by xstonehill (2016)
==Archives and Communities==
*Aladdin/Ren Kougyoku works on AO3
*アラ紅 tag on Pixiv
*Alakou works on Fanfiction.net
*Alakou tag on Deviantart
*Alakou tag on Wattpad
==Other Resources==
*Alakou ⁠— A Tumblr blog full of reblogs of Alakou posts
==References==
Category:Magi Relationships
Category:Het Pairings