Category Archives: Bishoujo Gaming

The End of an Era, The IDOLM@STER Million Live’s 10th Pause

It’s not about jokes revolving End Of Service, or retirement or graduation, even. It’s just the pronouncement of a pause, a well-deserved break, a long vacation maybe. Well, nobody is going on vacation except me, writing this up within a sun-lit villa on the islands of Hawai’i.

I was just musing with other Ps in a chatroom about how due to the postponement of ML11th, we now have these things after ML10th Act 4, as Million Live has not had another major concert since:

  • A new IM@S brand, which finished a 3-city tour four times
  • A full unit tour, and 2 more big productions for Cinderella Girls
  • 765PRO All Stars, well, with 961Pro, also put on 3 productions for MR concerts (Hangetsu, Re:Flame x2)
  • SideM had a few events, with its 10th anniversary stuff lined up. There were concerts and P-meets and even some reading plays.
  • Shiny Colors probably had the most. A full 2-cour anime (26eps) has aired since, plus a handful of full on concerts. A lot of stuff came with it.
  • There was also the big IDOLM@STER Expo which had cross-branch content, and the weird entrance exam-type event last month.

Million Live has had some things, namely a radio event (a 2-session talk and mini concert), and two release events (also same format). But it is definitely a big pause for a series that is about, uh, concerts. Which is just to say, that was merely theme, and not a promise that Million Live will have a lot of concerts. I mean, it did, just not anymore since maybe 2018.

The pause was dramatized here but also largely due to the postponement of ML11th due to uncontrollable circumstances. COVID still exist and caused some other cancellations, among other illnesses and issues putting the cast members on the disabled list temporarily. In the case of Ume Hanami’s character voice, she has been on hiatus since last autumn, and it is concerning given there has been no notice or signs of her getting better. The 1st full, big concert for Gakuen Idolm@ster is coming up at the end of May, so time is running out.

Having mixed media, live-performing content for decades invariably you have to work through the issues the average person may have with their bodies, be it normal or abnormal. When the cast count across all 6 (7? 8?) branches is in the several hundreds, well, you cannot really help it when folks take maternal leave or had to rest to recover from their throat surgery, or what have you. This is good–we don’t want to replace cast members in this franchise if we can avoid it, and if we’re cheering them on, we should cheer for their health benefits also. With this many people it’s bound to happen here or there across the full cast.

The funny thing to me is, it’s pretty clear that the team behind IM@S is taking the foot off the accelerator pedal now that ML enters this post 10th phase (all right after the anime and the postponed 9th/10th stuff). As a fan it feels like we’re floating, a bit like the anime production team between the end of the TV series and the OVA a couple years out?

Maybe it’s time to say it’s time to take a break, except seeing what they’re doing in the other branches, they are clearly tending to them with what spare energy they have left. I still clearly remember how bad KominoP looked during the announcement stream, there was probably some death marching going on? I don’t know, but bringing up Gakumas from the start had to be hard, especially with the amount of engagement the series is getting. It’s a lot. I can’t remember any time engaging with any IM@S series that I had this much difficulty keeping track of all the collaborations that it has. And this is a series that isn’t even a year old.

So while my foot is also on the pedal like the rest of them at Bannam, maybe it’s still a good time to take a breather for the hard Million Ps out there. HotchPotch 2 is almost upon us, and so is the 20th anniversary stream (part 2?) in a few days. I hope everyone can take a moment to rest and finish out 2025 safely and with health.

PS. There was a tweet/post of WakachikoP (Wakako Hazama) looking frenetic at one of the AEON mall events some months ago–those events tend to feature a small space in a rural or suburban mall, with a couple cast members giving a talk and some giveaways. It all tend to be somewhat disorganized (for Japan standards) and the frenetic face in the pic is worth a thousand words. I am truly hoping the members of the team take better care of themselves. Running events can be hard (LOL don’t we know).


From Super Duper to Choo Choo Choo, From Korea to the World through IDOLM@STER, Or Just Gakumas Half-Year Update.

Does anyone remember Super Duper? This certified Kpop inspired track was written literally by a Korean composer, is going on to 8 years old now.

Kpop has been a thing for some time, especially in Japanese music scenes–easily from the turn of the decade into the 2010s. What is it now? It’s basically baked into the influences of modern-day track makers and composers. ASOBI NOTES is full of these people. Music games like Deresute and Theater Days have to sort of refresh its turn-of-decade meta to catch that Kpop wave, while newer IDOLM@STER IP have incorporated those styles more deeply, with SHHIis and, well, everything about Gakuen IDOLM@STER.

Here is the contribution in Gakumas by Shiina Go, the video game music creator of some renown, putting down these pop rhythm tracks to give the character song more, uh, character. It’s not some big epic piece of “founding of a nation” as seiyuu Matsuda Ayane (CV of Ume) said during the stream, but it sure sounds like one? It’s not Kpop, but maybe laced a little with various inspiration.

I bring up Juou Sena mainly because before her character song/MV was released, the teaser video from a week earlier looked like this:

On the night before her release, we then get this video?

Anyways.

There are other similar types of pop songs from the various branches of IDOLM@STER, and it’s easy to see how the first branch of IDOLM@STER with a Giga song would try to out do the OMGs or H4ADSHOTs from the other branches. Turns out it’s not yet upon us?

Just to give a quick half-year update on Gakumas–the initial excitement has definitely faded somewhat but behind all the hype lies a solid Slay-the-Spire-inspired video game that also loops a good chunk of the game into what Shiny Colors really ought to be in the first place. Each run takes 20-30 minutes, and while for the first 6 months we were preoccupied with grinding up levels (to unlock new cards) and to get the hang of the base 2 produce plans (logic and sense–each has a couple different builds), we are getting the “Watcher” equivalent now with Sena.

So far the Anomaly (or watcher?) produce plan plays closer to the power build for sense, except you can really chain those switchovers between Guidelines (modes?) for a lot of buffs such as added appeal bonuses and additional actions, and shredding the deck becomes kind of important. In fact, part of the mechanics is an exile system where some cards can be basically exiled and then returned when you go into the Full Power Guideline (mode). There are also some cards that can only be played during full power, and you can sort of chain between the modes for even more impact. There are also cards that has “growth” abilities which gives additional bonuses when you use those cards to enable a mode switch.

So far, yeah, it’s definitely more powerful than the other plans, at least in terms of ramping up to a certain score quickly. It’s less certain how high it can possibly ramp in total, but it wouldn’t surprise me the heights will be higher than ever once folks start to complete their inheritance decks and start playing for real.

On that note, Sena’s push into the game and the whole intro was really fun and I enjoyed her character story in the game. It paints an interesting character and, if anything, makes other characters like her from the IDOLM@STER a bit more grounded? Anyways, it’s nice to have an injection of fresh air at this point in the Gakumas product time line.

We know that the 3 rivals we’ll get in the first year of the game (Mizusu eventually, right?) will match with the first 3 idols in the series (Sena actually pairs with Kotone, which is something people didn’t really vocalize so far). Ume was most notably taken by Saki as the main character (while being her sister). MIzusu appears plentily in Temari’s character story. So will the other 6 also get rivals in year 2? I guess we’ll find out.


Gakumas Impressions, The First Month

Barely one month in, there’s enough about the Gakuen IDOLM@STER game beyond the pre-release hype cycle to talk about the first new brand for the IDOLM@STER series in 6 years. It’s fun! Also I need some place to flaunt my gacha rolls?

On that note, I was able to pull every P SSR thus far, except for Kotone’s current banner (Big Bang) and the base Kotone SSR. (I farmed the base Kotone P SSR since.) I guess the game and I are just not into her? It was not immediately clear to me why you would roll for P SSRs, but they do have stronger items, higher starting stats, and generally stronger special skill cards. Maybe the “end” goal in this game is also just PVP where you assemble groups of 3 teams going head to head with other idol teams. I don’t know.

A key thing about the game is that much of the game is locked behind the P level progression. This includes many powerful SR and SSR skill cards, not to mention the “pro” produce mode. What you can do in this game is different than many prior IM@S games, so it’s worth spelling it out a bit before going forward.

Most IM@S games you gacha for characters and outfits, but in Gakumas you gacha for outfit, music, and SSR skills. It’s more like IDOLY PRIDE in that the cast of characters are limited and they are outright available to play with, or close to it. Having the SR and SSR P cards do help make getting a good produce run easier, and you can make stronger memories.

Memories are the output of each produce run. Each memory carries with it a skill card that can be used in a subsequent run, a set of skills to boost your run when you use that memory, and a deck+items for PVP. Oh, you can also take a photo from the final performance of each run to use as the icon for that memory. So yes, the game surrounds memories.

The gameplay, being a roguelike battle card game, the skill cards are important as a tool to carry over on each run. There are some strats here where you play normal mode to get a B or B+ memory with just 1 SSR+ so you have a 50/50 rate to obtain the same SSR+ (or SR+) in your deck in the output memory. Rather than whatever a higher scoring run requires, if you aim low, you can get by with just 1 SSR. It’s something worth trying once you get a special card that you think you really want to keep, because you also have to thin your deck with various tricks yet still get as much stat as possible.

Playing it more normally, you’d want to just play a lot and hope the inherited (lack of a better term) skill card is the one you want, and upgraded if possible. At higher score levels you can get more boosts for your subsequent runs, so ultimately you want memories that have both skills you want and as many highest tier of boosts you want (and of the right types).

The split between (P)roduce SSR and (S)upport SSR was introduced through Shiny Colors, so it’s nice to see they basically carry that idea into Gakumas. In Gakumas both P and S SSRs are the same banner too, so it’s already quite a bit less exploitative than either Shinymas game. There is so far the base banner and the new banner, which has a rate up on the new cards, and seems like the new cards are not in the base banner. The free roll tickets also seems to only work on the base banner so I wonder how often they would update it…or reset the rolls on that.

Support SSRs are basically like memories, except they only carry either an item or a skill card, and have much stronger boosts that maps to the support card’s level. You need to earn blue support tokens to spend to level them up, which you get from achievements and runs, and the plethora of stores/kuji pools in the game.

From a gameplay perspective, this is Slay the Spire, IDOLM@STER version. Stats play a big role on your midterm and final scores, but winning the training games efficiently is also how you can get big stats. Having to carry less slots for gameplay means you can carry more slots for stats, also. But that’s pretty much it for that–we are gatekept by level 60 SSRs being so hard to obtain right now (as you need up to 5+1 borrowed).

From the usual content delivery machine point of view, Gakumas is unlike previous entries in that it’s a lot more anime-like. Maybe that’s just QualiArt for you, but the main commu is basically shuraba-kei writing from the OreImo anime scriptwriter, played out as a video that you can stepwise skip line by line. Some would say this is “Iori-core” especially with Saki being the lead Red character. Temari is a big dork and Kotone is more the audience perspective. The drama ensues. The game postures the character-specific commu based on affection levels which are unlocked by specific achievements. During a produce run you can unlock them in the middle of the run and it presents a continuous story to you. It’s got this “anime as you play” vibe especially when you get the “ending” commu at affection level 10, complete with a ED sequence.

Part of what makes it more anime-like is that there is a lot of interaction between idol from the get go. We have the head-turning move of introducing us to the True Red character, Ume, who is more of the archetypical main IM@S red character, then to show us that Saki is actually the main Red. After reading the SSR+level 10 commu for both Saki and Ume it became really clear that until late in the production process, Ume was really the main character and Saki was the ultimate rival. They switched it partly because Ume herself is a bit countercultural in the way she is like Saki, and ultimately Saki would make more sense as the main character if things played out that way. So yes, things are playing out that way. This is not to mention the wide spectrum of cast members. China, Hiro and Temari are all quite eccentric and their interactions with everyone are amusing. Well, I guess so are Saki and Ume.

It’s hard to not praise Gakumas for sticking to being an IM@S game yet going against the grain in all the right ways. Maybe it’s not perfect, but overall it is doing everything right. I guess the gameplay itself is a bit of mixed bag because it is Slay the Spire, which is a popular genre-specific game. I guess it is part of the 2020 zeitgeist with board games being more popular in Japan as well as with indie games, but I suppose it works.

And in a similar vein, while I put in about 40 hours in Slay the Spire before taking a hiatus, you can also hit the content cap by getting to level 10 affection for every character in Gakumas. It probably will also take roughly 30-40 hours! Not bad for a free to play gacha game where none of this is gated per se, it just takes longer without stronger cards. The time-limited events thus far are kind of not in a set pattern, and it all seems to be the trivial “get stronger by playing the game more” kind of thing. I guess we will see what the future brings and if this franchise has the sauce for longevity.

For what it is worth, I’m still not 100% decided who to oshi–still leaning towards Rinami because it’s what I like, but the Ume is the riceball rolling straight into my heart. It is definitely a good problem to have.


Gakuen Idolm@ster has Dropped

Everything that needs to be said about Gakuen Idolm@ster can be found on Twitter/X. There’s also this wonderful thin slice on the visual contents side from Sakugabooru–feeding us 9 proper music videos will do this. I personally enjoy the music, not only because “Hajime” is the most IM@S song I’ve heard since Starlit Season, but also because each of the 9 felt like some Asobinotes persons took each one and ran.

Between QualiArts lifting IDOLM@STER into the 2020s, that we are onboarding into an official Discord server, or that ultimately the game still isn’t available in another language besides Japanese, there’s a lot to be said of the game that is both a content delivery platform that Ps are familiar with, and idol-slay-the-spire strapped on top of a gacha game engine. The first banner and event already dropped, 1 week into launch. I spent a lot of Acen avoiding to play it, and a lot of Animazement playing it….which speaks more to which con is more laid back than the other and less about how compelling the game is.

I have not much else to say than, again, finally IM@S is a game that is new. It is so hard for Japan to create something new but still maintain what was great about the original, yet they are able to do it from time to time in spectacular fashion. I ate up the pre-launch promo like a child in a candy store, waking up early for each character reveal. The rivals, the Chokaigi streams, the daily video drops, it was a lot of fun. This doesn’t even mention the curve ball like Apple Music’s regular show. Or Chihaya.

So yes, the Famitsu in-depth interview confirms that the lead creatives are otaku influenced by works from the 00s, which explains why the vibe feels like the 00s. It answers many of the questions.

As for the game… it is a card game roguelike, in terms of getting the performances/practices. You raise the idol by using P items and building the deck, and gaining stats (ViVoDa) by achieving a certain number of points during audition or practice. There’s the full uma inheritance thing with 4 cards you can bring with you each produce trip, plus stats/bonuses from those previous runs. Support and P gacha cards add more special cards or items (persistent artifacts/items) plus other bonuses to stat/health to your game.

It’s also a lot of fun. I know some might want to have a more long-form roguelike experience (closer to STS) but I like this shorter format where you can really grind in small chunks. Each run takes about 30 minutes. The SSRs gate the songs for each idol in this game which is an unusual trick versus the previous games. The idol performance, as you roguelike your way each time, improves until you get to the True End.

Gakumas is all clicking and firing on all cylinders. Shiny Colors anime or Miriani may be for “existing” fans, but so is Gakumas in a way. It’s so fun to see how this game came into existence and to me it isn’t how different it is as an imas game, but how much it took from the past and made it its own that seems amazing to me.


IDOLM@STER 18th Stream, SideM Thoughts

This is just the thoughts from this particular Producer, so take it as you will. Just reacting to some other folks from this morning (evening JP time on July 25) when the 18th anniversary stream dropped its usual payload of news and inter-brand interactions.

I’m lurking in a couple community discord servers for IDOLM@STER. Some SideMs are gnashing teeth. Others are just putting them to perspective. You can see some of that in the Youtube comments. I think perspective is important, as it can highlight the way forward out of this hellish situation. But I think some empathy and compassion is good. More over, these emotions and momentary problems are probably something that will come and pass with time, without us doing a whole lot.

One thing I noticed is that many of these online communities are surrounding the core game product. This is Deresute, MLTD, the Enza Shiny game, and what have you. Players of the console 765Pro games kind of dissolves into the background as old(er) people who bring up obscure data points (see above about perspective) but it’s not tangibly linked to the community. The band of IDOLM@STER branding is not that strong.

I think this is invariably the case when all it takes is a smartphone or emulator, and Qooapp. All these free-to-play games have no doors, effectively, other than being in Japanese. And just like how anime culture in America is a rainbow regurgitation of the same thing in Japan, a lot is lost in the translation. Or more precisely, a lot is missing in the localization of a media mix IP, that wasn’t even localized to begin with. Localization outfits are just publishers, they are not marketing firms with a hand in the media mix pie who want to sell rights to merch or whatever it takes to do SideM Ice Cream.

I would feel way less secure as a SideM P if all I had was the game and not the concerts, the live streams, the music, the anime, the comics, and the fandom at large. I really think this is part of the answer to Bannam dropping the Growing Stars game, but not much of this has come. Anyways, it has been disconcerting for some Ps and things have remained uncomfortable.

I remember seeing the SideM announcement at MOIW 2014 intermission. I was there at my first IM@S concert and still feeling a bit overwhelmed. Yes, even back then, we, collectively (Japan?), know that joseimuke stuff was taking off. Women buying 2D dude merch was a bigger thing than it was ever before. It was a force to tap into, if you are an opportunist. So at some level, SideM joining the fray was already a bit, let’s just say, sus, fundamentally.

At any rate, SideM fits this scheme, and I bemused around then, even, that Bannam was a tad late. But the dice were cast, and we’re in it together. Will IDOLM@STER as a business translate well as joseimuke content and media mix strategy? Despite hindsight being mostly 20/20, I think the answer is still unclear. To some degree, we see where it was successful. We also see the missteps.

I think one clear thing we can say is that Bannam executed the SideM vision with some urgency. Vision 2.0 started with IDOLM@STER 2, which introduced us to Jupiter. These guys are the lynchpins for the SideM franchise and connects us from today back all the way to origin. SideM also provided a home Akizuki Ryo, which we cannot say enough to thank for. Maybe this is at SideM’s cost as a female-pandering franchise, but ultimately it was just one person in a group with 46 or 49 idols. These are, in the big picture of the 18 years of IDOLM@STER, large, franchise-altering moves. They’re on par with Shiny Colors dropping a new unit every year from 2019 to 2022. But I didn’t think Bannam and the SideM team played this up well. Maybe because they were urgently trying to solidify this brand?

I believe urgency was why SideM took the path of Million Live, almost carbon-copy from web game to app game. It was definitely why SideM had a TV anime first, well before Million. But did this urgency pay off? I’m not sure. I can say that the transition to the app game did more to harm it than any other decision for the series, because SideM LIVE ON ST@GE was not up to the quality and standards set by the other games in the series. If rushing was a big factor towards the cause of it, it was just a bad decision.

In 2021 we got SideM GROWING STARS, which is being shut down this month. The circumstances surrounding the shutdown is still a mystery. But we probably got here only because the mistake that was LOS. Still, we should properly credit who credit is due: Bannam needs to own the bad treatment for this franchise at the closing of the game. SideM now does not have a game platform to put all the character content on top of. I think that’s actually okay, but it invites envy and criticism.

Objectively speaking, what SideM is doing is becoming more lean and agile. New character media mix franchises often start this way: announcements, casts, recorded songs and drama. But this is sort of the opposite business strategy for IDOLM@STER, one that hasn’t really happened until the launch of Shiny Colors. It is still a really weird way to see an IDOLM@STER brand exist. How can players be players without an ongoing game? Until this existential issue is resolved, it stands to reason that SideM players and producers are going to have their undies in a knot.

Given this blog and I am very silver-lining oriented, this is the best spin I can put on it. Bannam did what they could, they pushed the franchise and hit all the high notes until the Covid years. There is not much left to execute for SideM in the Vision 2.0 game plan.

So, because I have nothing to lose if I am wrong, you should take the following prediction as far or as close as you want. I suggest that the 6th franchise in IDOLM@STER canon might be also joseimuke. KominoP said it started 5 years ago. What started 5 years ago? So again, I have nothing to lose if I’m wrong, it’s going to be joseimuke, and 2.5D oriented. I mean it makes sense. It’s the one arrow missing in the quiver of the IDOLM@STER franchise. I want real life Haruka tripping on stage, just like how I really enjoyed my time at the Umamusume stage performance. SideM did rodokugeki. Is this why IDOLM@STER was so slow to this punch?

Because, on paper, the only threat to IDOLM@STER is Umamusume. Bang Dream is for kids! D4DJ is … also for kids. IDOLM@STER is for boomers! Love Live is actually just not-iM@S and belongs to Bandai Namco anyways. That’s why the franchise want to expand and add, it needs to grow to replace the warm bodies that will graduate from the series because invariably, as long as SideM or Million or 765Pro continues to exist, Bannam will make mistakes along the way. Rightfully so, it’s okay to quit when these entertainment IPs stop being entertaining.

Except Cinderella Girls–it continues to grow, and Cygames seemed to have hit the winning formula. Doomposting, unvoiced Producers continue to cause chaos and rub people the wrong way as entitled pricks. One person’s bug is another person’s feature, I guess.