To me, the Dearly Stars game and the PSP games are really what lead into the iM@S2 launch, along with anticipation for the new anime. It might not look that way (as I’m sure there’s always something coming out, important or notable or not), but it seems each step since the arcade game they tried to widen things up. The anime obviously fanned the fire like nothing else, but it also doesn’t mean anything if nobody bought the games. Thankfully lots of people bought the games (enough for a budget re-release within a year, which is something you don’t see that often).

I guess it fits that the pachislot game is liken to the original, which would see fit right along side it I suppose…

Saying that, it’s not like there wasn’t a steady stream of content being produced between the games, though (at least looking at the series timeline in the iM@S For You book they put out with the PS3 game).

Honestly, I think the initial major spike of interest was around the time of the 360 game and, more significantly, L4U (because it really, really fed into the growing NND iM@S PV culture of the time), and then there was a pretty significant dip in general interest in the series around the time of DS (that coming out at the height of Love Plus Mania didn’t really help it). It’s probably more the anime than the PS3 game which spiked the current upsurge of interest. I do find it strangely curious (though I’m not sure if it’s necessarily telling) that the Pachislot game is harking back to the original game rather than the 2nd Vision stuff.

All of this, of course, discounts this whole Cinderella Girls thing…

None of this really discounts any of what you’re saying about the slow and steady build of iM@S fandom, though, so I’m not sure why I’m typing it ^^;