[Update: they have revamped the reservation system somewhat, so this post is obsolete if you want to make a reservation. Good still for some history so you know why things are the way they are. Some info still are good, such as the slots.]

Characro is a … brand? How do you explain Namco’s side businesses in meatspace amusement? Anyway, there’s the IDOLM@STER Cafe in Tokyo that will probably run for the next foreseeable months. (That, and Tiger & Bunny, and Macross Frontier.) I went to the IM@S cafe a bunch of times, so I figured a guide & review is appropriate. Maybe I’ll cross-post it to HPT.

The cafe itself is no longer new & novel, since it started doing business last December, and the sheen is gone for Ps especially because it’s the kind of place you want to go a lot of times. The novelty can wear off fast if you do that. For me, I can stand to go there a few more times.

Oh, this is entirely different from the Cure Cafe Cinderella Girls tie-in, just to be clear.

Vitals:
Characro Cafe Akihabara (IM@S and T&B)
Home Page
How to go there (JP)
Address: 2 Chome-5-12 Kanda Surugadai BF-1, Chiyoda, Tokyo
[It’s across the street from Garten, which is a certain someone’s regular joint.]

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A popular portrayal of state manipulation of a populace is a quote from the movie Gladiator, where some Greek dudes say something about giving the people something or another. Well, that’s made-up ancient history.

Looking at the other direction, the future of Japan is not the brightest in some ways. This week some rich Japanese guy said they’re turning to robots and immigrants to support its rapidly aging population. It already is the oldest population in the world. If children are our future, well, then Japan doesn’t have too many to count on, per capita.

Can robot hotel bellhop keep my bags after I check out?

I want to point out these two ingredients: generational pressure as a structural stress in the lost gen Japanese (and their subsequents) and the simple fact that people crave entertainment when in these uncertain times. There is probably some academic term that describes the condition these cultural forces create, not unlike how cold Canadian air and jet stream moisture from the west cause a Nor’easter during the cold months of the year in the US Northeast. Please enlighten me if you know what it is.

The term I have for Anzu, though, is a pressure release valve. Academics have long coined Japanese subcultural trends and identity politics in these ways. Sure, cartoon idols (or real ones, for that matter) are a significant improvement over slaves and indentured servants fighting for the death for the public’s amusement, as far as civility goes, but both can effectively diffuse tension.

As entitled as kids and young adults may seem from the eyes of the older generation, it is not a bad place to begin. Rights only exists when they are recognized. To recognize rights, you need to know about them first. And before we know, we have to learn. When you already are entitled to such, it is natural to demand it, regardless if privileges or rights may make a better label to the things Anzu demands (casually).

Of course, in another sense, Anzu’s demands is satirical. If we compare her to another comrade’s idol persona, Uesaka Sumire’s act doesn’t even “go there” really, as it is more Russophilia than it is Leftist.  Nonetheless these acts taps lightly on our ingrained, post-Cold War subconscious and remind us that in an increasingly individualized society, shared rights still exist. Together we are strong. Even if today such strong sense of unity that our fathers or grandfathers have is becoming a thing of the past, from lifetime employment to strong union protections.

And in a funny way that links right into 団結, which is one of the core tenets of IM@S thematically. Danketsu, as the term goes, makes that cultural ideal contextualized that fits the cultural norm of today’s society where people work together, even if they may be competitors. It’s really an oddish concept to just call it “Unity” as translations go, but such is the careful duality of the world IM@S portrays. I think it’s more like the “collaboration” strategy in a conflict resolution setting (as opposed to say, zero-sum competition or compromise), in which in a pop-culturally accepted, ideal communist world, the whole is greater than the sum of their parts, and despite our lazy selves, we work hard.

That’s why Anzu is best idol, right?

[I wish there was some English-language media study available regarding anime and games of the 2000s, because that was certainly a trend, these otaku-rehabilitating stuff. It would be interesting to read on how these works tried to achieve these goals.]

The joke aside, I think that by channeling to these subconscious stresses and fears and a way to address them in a pop culturally sensitive way, Anzu as a concept can be attractive.

It makes you wonder what is inside Kirari, too.

Some quick observation from Dereani or Anidere or Deremas Anime or CG anime or whatever the hell we’re calling it.

1. The producer is the ultimate head trick given in the adaptation space for these games. If we think of the evolution of harem works since the 80s and 90s and up to today, terms like “self-insert” or “potato-kun” might be the image you are thinking about. However at the same time in works where the focus is on the “girls” or as far as features go, that’s why anyone bothers with such works, you can think of the protagonist male-dude as a shadow or a negative space. That’s where a creative adaptation can really flex its muscles. In recent years these kinds of “harem-esqe” (as while most of these are harem, some aren’t) works started to actually paint in stronger protagonists, especially coming from a light novel heritage/line, because an interesting protagonist is a major draw for any reader, player or viewer; let alone how such a character can give one work some distinguishing merits over its competition in the crowded marketplace.

In Animas, the producer was a literal camera trick in the style of Ocean Waves in episode 1. The producer revealed wasn’t just an introduction to who he is to the idols, but it revealed how Animas was going to approach the adaptation. In that sense the same happened in Deremas Anime. What’s probably key here is that in the first episode we focused on actually three characters’ development: Rin, Uzuki, and Producer. In Animas, only one character got a lot of development: Producer. (Okay, and maybe Haruka.)

In a nutshell, the games are LOL-meta in how it reflects this tendency in the importance of the player in IM@S (games) as it does in the anime. And it seems Deremas Anime is going full throttle in painting in that negative space, versus a more mild treatment we got in the 765Pro P.

2. The net effect of this is that for some parts of the Deremas Anime episode 1 experience, I am reminded of Puchim@s. That is another take on the IM@S concept, after all. In that anime P actually got arrested. It’s also a good example of how important the P character is in IM@S in general, as well as in the adaptations. It’s the rudder to the ship, in a manner of speaking. Which is just saying what I just said.

3. From this point, it only makes sense, given the 346Pro concept, that there will be multiple Producers in Deremas Anime.

• It wouldn’t be realistic if one huge agency has only one producer, nor is it realistic to expect one producer to manage the countless number of CG idols.
• Inter-producer dynamics would blow my head off, and I think they’re gunning for this. Ritsuko’s role change in 2nd Vision paved the way for this anyway. It’ll be natural to see it extended in Deremas Anime, which is a social game with multiple players together as a core conceit, and it’s a game where players typically produce a small-small subset of all possible idols.
• Going with that, it would make sense our Kuzuki-sensei-like P is a newbie along with the other New Generation idols, learning the ropes together.

4. The first episode of any new anime is important, but in IM@S’s case, it’s super-duper important. I’m glad it turned out well.

5. it’s A-1 at their A-game. Details will come later but that is some Kyoto Animation level storyboards LOL. There were not only the signature frame cropping and liberal use of “large aperture” shots, but a fairly cinematic approach to the storyboarding with lots of quick cuts.

6. It’s a lot of idols I recognize and a lot I do not recognize. I can facially ID maybe 80% of them but I only know maybe 30% of their names. I’ve been playing CG for only a couple months after all. I mean, you have to be a hardcore CG P to get everyone, and that’s not exactly the same thing as an IM@S P in general.

7. Yes, Nation Blue, the eventer in me picked it up immediately, and since I was trawling twitter anyway it was nice to see this tweet right around that time.

I’m tempted to go through the episode blow-by-blow but that’s kind of time consuming. More fun if you do it yourself.