THE IDOLM@STER SHINY COLORScame to Canada for the first time. The cast members for Mei, Koito and Nichika were part of the group coming. They performed at the Saturday festival concert and had an autograph session, and a VIP M&G/Autograph session. Azusa Shizuki has been to Canada previously, but it was the first time for Saren Tajima and Mei Kitahara.
That alone was pretty cool, but there was also some Bandai Namco folks who came and met with fans–this time mainly Kei Umeki, who is one of the main Events manager from Bandai Namco Entertainment for the IDOLM@STER. Here is another interview where Umeki talked with the other series tantous about Ijigen Fes (with English TL).
Anyways, let’s not forget the other guests who visited Animethon in 2026–Daoko, Minori Chihara, Mas’Scar’Piece, Who-Ya Extended, and Hellbroth. Kenji Nojima rounds out the JP seiyuu side and I was able to see one of his panels for once, as it didn’t conflict with anything. I hope he comes to NYC for once for all that Banana Fish fame?
THE IDOLM@STER properly had an event in America, at Anime Central 2026. I have read a bunch people’s reactions and reflection of their trip to the con and I think I don’t have much that I could add. I am too tired to link to all of them, but I’ll try to do some at the end of this post.
With Slay the Spire 2 now in Early Access on Steam, I’ve been slowly pecking at it, reliving playing the first game casually years back. I’ve been also looking at it just like any Gakumas player would–where do these two games overlap?
I am not exactly a big Gakuen Idolm@ster player, in fact I am quite casual about it other than spending money on gacha. I’m not even P Level 70 yet. I’m probably more invested in the characters, the stories, the liveconcerts, and definitely the music, over the game itself.
I’m just writing that I can’t decide which game to play. On one hand, the grind in Slay 2 is a lot easier to mix it up, each run can be quite different than the next, especially at my point in the progression. In Gakumas, I’m generally taking the easiest P idol card to one of the two or three modes and just trying to hit the current event objective, maybe it’s Hajime Legend or NIA (either). I’m actually not all clear on the Step 3s, so I’ll be taking some time to grind that out. It’s kind of annoying some step 3s only gave you a week to clear before the boost period expires, and, uh, my oversea trips are sometimes longer than that!
I have a lot of backlog stuff to do in Gakumas, like all the idol road unlocks (I guess I have some XP to banked up there). I don’t even sweat the contests (auto team all the way, rank 6 and occasionally 7). The nature of service game is that it’s part of your life, a chunk of your routine. Slay 2 ain’t it. Maybe it is why the whole experience feels fresh, kind of like opening a new present on Christmas.
It is definitely a luxurious problem to have, but how do I allocate time to which game that basically scratch a similar itch? In Gakumas, the turns are basically a timer in which you have to hit a goal. In Slay the Spire, you also have to hit a goal (kill the enemy) but the timer is really your defense and health. For some decks it’s a DPS check, for others it’s the equivalent of Magic: the Gathering’s mono blue wincons. Is that something people understand these days? In Slay you are looking at a map and trying to smartly choose the path, choose your rewards, choose your upgrades and artifacts, for the max impact. In Gakumas you are picking usually 1-3 options to max your total stats versus your primary stat, while picking up potion combos and deck upgrades, and oh, there’s health here too.
Maybe it’s more about the issues with service games. You really need to have a good grasp of them before they tear too much of your life away from you. Don’t need them to block you from doing the things you want…indeed, the real buttery lobsters are waiting for you. It’s time to take a break from school to slay some for yourself.
The 765PRO ALLSTARS+ put on a show in August 2025, for the first time in a long time, with the full cast. You can check out the set lists here.
I was asked to give some words about Never End Idol to Vini so he can put it in a video, which I will link back here when it’s ready to go. But in order to do that, I should write some of that down and organize my thoughts.
As someone who went to it with some trepidation and anticipation, I can say that in the end all of that effort and energy was met with an equally enjoyable and memorable experience, a touchstone performance for the ages. Part of it is what I brought–a bunch of tickets so folks I met on my P journey can share the moment. Part of it is what I … brought … in that with these fan-oriented events, you get as much out of it, to some degree, as you put in. Some Ps put their entire life (or life savings, maybe) into this series, so the payback could be (the focus is on *could*) tremendous, in terms of emotional highs at least. I am not sure that was me even in 2025 terms, but I probably was in that target demographic.
For sure, it was the FOMO, I think, that made NEI worth while. It’s never going to be better than your first Yakusoku, as the logic goes. I’m glad some people got their first Yakusoku finally. Looking back at that memory after Chihaya Budokan, though, I’m not sure about that logic anymore. It’s not about logic, after all, but that’s another post.
Personally, Yakusoku is a pretty amusing thing to talk about. As someone who got into IM@S through the original TV anime and IM@S 2, you would think that meant a lot to me, but I am sure even in 2026 as I write this, it’s still just “that Chihaya song.” I thought the whole thing that went down during 9th tour was, as everyone who witnessed it, an emotional touchstone of the franchise, the moment Chihaya Ps collectively melted into Primordial Puddles of tears. But since I wasn’t there, I don’t really have a handle on it to do anything, to process that event.
Of course, as someone who didn’t go to 9th, it was tainted with a shade of FOMO. It wasn’t even really the thing I was fearing out about–I just wanted to witness in person the peak Hirorin performances during the Nagoya stop. I had more urgent things to miss out on, as it were, that I didn’t really get to think about Yakusoku or feel like I needed to fixate on how Erimingosu had added that page to their legend at the time.
Fast forward to 2025–I got to meet Erimingosu at Acen. That was the weekend when the final piece of the puzzle kind of fell into place. For the short moments I got to talk to Mingosu I was able to get a glimpse why are so many ChihayaPs are earnest tryhards, or the 10 years of history recapped in that silly ending to MOIW 2015. Of course, I had casually followed the two of them over various media forms from SNS to their IM@S and non IM@S works for decades, but I never saw the “heart” of the matter until I saw the two of them interact and each put on their cast member faces for the oversea Producers.
Anyways, the short of it is that at NEI not only I saw the same thing Erimingos saw–which are the happy crying faces of other Producers, but also I sort of better understood how it felt and what it meant. I still think the lead-in to Yakusoku on day 1 was egging it on a tad too much, and I really enjoyed the set list on day 2 more, bias or not. Across both days of NEI, things were much better for the people who were disappointed with SunrichColorful. And it is a warning that with IDOLM@STER, we are always a hair’s breadth away from disappointment–because the stakes are always so high, because the fans put so much into it.
But because for everything that I had gone through since I began this journey and for every ounce of energy and money that I spent on this series, I can see that the magic and potential for something legendary is there. It’s always riddled with risk and disappointment, but in the world of entertainment there are few opportunity for legendary experiences, and the 765PRO ALLSTARS+ are one of the few who can deliver.
And no it doesn’t even have that much to do with the great seat I got on day 2, or I got fansa from Hirorin, or that I got TEARS or VOY@GER. I see the very deep cuts NEI had (the crown thing at the end of day 1 was chef-kiss I gotta say.) but that largely missed for me. Thanks to the powers that be I was able to do some uchiage with oversea Ps after day 1. Thanks to the Hilton setup I even had a great time talking about the show and fandom in general on day 2 with Ps who stuck around in the hotel and around the venue. I even was able to chill at the 7th floor bar on day 0. The show went on and on, and it never ended for me, I suppose.
PS. Never End Idol is the first time I put decoration on my hotel window? It was fun so it’s worth doing again. Next time I’ll bring some two-sided tape…
I attended the Gakumas 1st concerts this weekend. It’s called “1st Period” but it’s actually not the first concert for the media-mix mobile game franchise. It’s just the first show (or 4 shows, spanning 2 weekends) that features the full cast, after the roughly-dated anniversary of the game’s live service a year ago. Since the game (and really before the game was released, including all the lead-up marketing) became available it has done well in the rankings and players generally have good things to say about the latest entry in the IDOLM@STER series. A lot was on the shoulders of the staff and cast to make this hotly-anticipated show a success.
There was a set of tours where 3 cast members form a team and tour Japan’s 3 largest cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya), each team doing 3 stops within a month, in almost back-to-back months. One of the stops was postponed by a typhoon, while the last set of 3 had a gap until February of this year. The appropriately called “Hajime” Tour needs to be mentioned because this is the cast’s actual first live stage experience, except one member. The tour definitely gave the stage experience to many of the newbies in the Gakumas cast, and more importantly it gave the fans a glimpse of what fresh grasshoppers were like close to a year ago.
The importance (or however little it is) put on seeing the growth of the idols is a core tenant in the design of the game, which various interviews have listed. This is just another aspect I suppose, but I appreciate how they made the live performance aspect parallel to its digital version. Or rather, I appreciate them knowing what it ought to be like on the receiving end.
As a Million P for many years, it feels tortured, it basically feels the opposite of it–things we would love and be hyped about often don’t happen when they ought to, or happens at all. Some things are delayed by over 10 years. Maybe delay is the wrong word, but at some point it just became sort of this deep barrel or well where we are glad to have anything being pulled out of, even though we know the contents can make for something much more.
Anyways, for a good example, when Our Chant dropped on Day Two of Harmony Star, we know (since the SSR) there would be a flag just like how Chiisana Yabou, Wonder Scale and Clumsy Trick all had their props. So Gakumas surprised and delighted us by adding Saki to the picture when she walks in with the flag. In fact, after seeing the Hajime Tour version of Wonder Scale and Chiisana Yabou we already think there would be props, just like how the game versions did. For even more foreshadowing, Harmony Star featured a duet (or trio in one case) of cast members joining in another idol’s solo song (and for this weekend it was limited to the B-side solos) so by the point on the second day when Our Chant happened, it felt like a perfect match when you stick the right jigsaw puzzle piece in the right slot.
For details, here are the links to the official site posts for the show, for posterity, and the usual imas-dblinks. Onward with the rest.
