Serendipitous P

Reading Author’s anecdote is like seeing a scale from a fish that you were riding all year, as you look back fondly after you’ve gotten off it and went home from the adventure. Except this is someone else’s scale and you are pleasantly surprised as he was that he has it.

I say the scale of a fish because this thing crosses oceans and exists on an unimaginable scale. The problem here is that we can say, “maybe you should watch Madoka because spawned the top grossing late-night TV anime movie, as if you need another indication to know the magnitude of the thing” and it only lightly signifies the issues with your average east-meets-west situation when fans of “obscure” things collide. This tortured analogy for all the Producer-ness, Producer-hood, or whatever it is, is just a poor attempt to explain how amazing it is to find fans who flew to Canada to see Harami, or fans who flew to Saitama to see Harami (and others). It’s this crisscrossing of people who are doing rather irrational fan things yet find beauty within. I mean, in a nutshell, some folks flew overseas to attend events. That’s not too unusual these days. But that’s just a single fragment or patch in a mural that depicts the kind of CUTE COOL PASSION a stadium full of nerds with glowsticks that people do not see when they see a news report or a synopsis video. It’s the fan-iceberg beneath the surface. And it’s a pain in the butt to describe this iceberg in full.

It might be why I am playing Million Live, so when I run into a P I have something for show? Or why all P should make business cards?

In that sense, as someone who lives in a world where nobody knows IM@S (eg., the USA) and half of those who do only do so at an arm’s length, even those who like idol anime (and this is part of the “problem”) or whatever, that’s both good and bad in that it makes the chance encounters even more beautiful, but I lack the resistance. I mean in the end IM@S is no different than any other media mix franchise, something Japan does in bulk and all the time. Just because this one sticks, for all the (right) reasons, it doesn’t mean all that much beyond that we have bonded as friends. Does this mean every seiyuu from 765Pro visits the USA I’ll have to travel and attend an offkai? Ouch.

It’s doubly problematic because IM@S, comparatively, is also a very broad and wide fandom with a varied history and a lot of assets and entry angles for fans to latch on to. Just like those people who build shrines of characters, or the koebutas that chase after the voice talents behind the 2D, or just plain gamers (because as far as idol games go, IM@S is pretty deep), we are sort of all for one. Not to say other fandoms don’t have these problems, but let’s just say Love Livers have it easy.

If The World Is All One is the feverish dream of a victim from chuunibyou, then One For All is the reality marble that turns dream into 2.5D reality. It ends when you wake up, still, but at least now you can look up strategy guides for it.

It reminds me of that song from Sakura Wars 2.

It’s beautiful, in a way, because of the direction the franchise is taking. I am more interested in the characters from Million Live and Cinderella Girls. The voice talents behind them are very good, if ultimately a different type of talent than the ones from the main group. This is the kind of pivot that I can get behind, if you know what I’m saying.