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.
I’ll just say things off the hip for this topic, but in a nutshell I can’t stand the CR-administered Crunchyroll Awards. It’s a marketing exercise, but I don’t mind that. What goes in one of these annual bruhaha is basically like, if there’s enough engagement, whatever is fine. Team Miles says it’s a numbers game, but it would pull examples about “fan recognition” for top-of-class works like Frieren which basically undermines the article’s top line point. What is the premise of Team Miles re: the Anime Awards? It’s putting lipstick on pig. I am frustrated because this isn’t rocket science, and it’s not about getting the nerds to agree what the marketing exercise needs to be, it’s just to make the thing where you can actually stand on something that’s just slightly less clickbaity than Solo Leveling winning it. Making it too critical disengages fans, sure, but you don’t have to. It’s not hard; Mile has done it in his hypo, but whatever CR does, just own that this is a marketing exercise. In this 2025 rendition it is just trying to put into terms of the “fandom” (if we still need to use this term to talk about the people who watch 1-2 titles per year as “fans”) consensus. That’s probably fine, but to me that’s kind of just a huge waste of time. Why? Because if you are a fan, how do you not know what is the consensus?
Make no mistake however, I wish the Awards the best, this year and going forward. I would rather engage in the thing that consistently provides my idol-seiyuu internet little sister Sally Amaki a job, than to ignore it completely. It’s one thing when you swallow the bitter pill to watch a trash anime for the seiyuu you care about, it’s another when the twitter/x shitqueen retweets something in your muted/ignored keyword list. Well, my life is no worse off if I ignore it, but I wish my life to be better, which means unfortunately the Anime Awards needs to be better.
The other marketing exercise that is much more engaging (for better or for (mostly) worse), is Anime Expo. There is a lot of positives when Japan can focus its money laser on one US event to show that they care about anime’s largest oversea market. The perspective I have is that, while there is plenty of interest and even maybe money, there isn’t enough of it. As someone who pressed for nearly a decade I can tell you that is one sad game. How do fans get their news other than from PR machines like CR? Is there something not owned by Sony or Kadokawa that we read from? Not to say there is anything wrong with the way things are today(there is so much but that’s for a different post), but if we are to improve on the marketing/news/informational aspect of the fandom we need commercial entities to help.
Which is to say, AX is actually one of those things that has been around forever. SPJA has its myriad of issues over the years, but it serves this function. If anything, that it and AX continue to exist is the proof that good things happen when you bring fans to the commercial side from across the pond. Or maybe I should say you bring Japanese execs and their big booths to Los Angeles and shower them with the many tens of thousands of people who swarm the DTLA summer beer garden that it’s becoming.
I mean there isn’t anything wrong (or is there) with $15 beers on the sidewalks of LA Live, but they keep on growing the footprint of the thing and they can do all this concession outside. Last year everyone was pretty nicely vibing with how AX felt, with slightly lower attendance. This year seems to be slightly bigger lift from the marketing side than last, so we’ll see how it turns out. Which is to say, AX has many problems, but at its core it’s about tapping into the commerical side to give something to the fans. Classic anime cons are fan cons that have to work to pull commercial entities to work with them. From my POV, Japanese companies need to engage all the other large North American cons, not just AX. It’s definitely an unmet need or a vacuum of sorts. AX can feel like a sausage factory with how much commercial content is being squeezed into 4ish days, it’s a feast for that stuff while other cons are in famine.
Which is also to say this fan vs corp thing is toxic, we can coexist as long as, IDK, if we actually have ethics in journalism instead of a dog whistle or something. The reality is both benefits. We are not going to (I am not going to) get IM@S in America without Bandai Namco thinking if they build it we will come. Fans needs to show and showcase their fandom in a more concrete way, and fan cons need to kind of see the forest for the trees and treat it as such and not just vibe until next year. Con runners are exactly the people in the positions to show the execs what the fans want. It really should be a huge part of their game, and for the most part, it is invisible.
Meanwhile AX needs to work on that “for worse” part above. It’s no harm no foul when the Anime Awards crowds some dumb webtoon thing I didn’t even watch as winning a bunch of its categories. It’s another when kids get heat stroke while in line to see some Web 3.0 influencer in the SoCal sun. That is way too close to our postmodern dystopia for me. It’s life and limb when fans trample each other to grab autograph tickets. Or one of the many ways Anime Expo can be UNSAFE. Nobody needs to get hurt or go to the hospital over the Anime Awards or Anime Expo, so let’s keep safety first.
Isn’t it wild that Masako Nozawa is appearing at a West Coast convention and you can join her meet and greet for $3500? Anyways, this is just one of the many recent developments I saw today.
Let me start with house keeping, it’s this kind of a post, sorry? First of all, the newsletter is pretty dead since over a year and half ago so that was that. I have links and pages dated 2023 that I have not linked anywhere. Slowly I’m trying to clean those up from my massive number of Chrome tabs. Only 3-400 more to go or something.
For anime, for what it is, the business that it is, you can check out a couplesubstacks. It’s nice that semi-pros are doing what I always envisioned to exist in the right way. That said I really should continue to write about my own niche–events, and seiyuu, around anime/game/manga etc.
I recently came back from a local convention (Kogaracon) and talking/overhearing some people who attend these events there are definitely a network of local school cons on top of the more profit-driven events. If you know one near you, it helps to support them by showing up. It’s also pretty relaxing to hit a con and be back home the same day, getting all the things you want.
I have a post written up for Kawaiikon and the fan event I helped run for Sally Amaki and Kana Ichinose. Hopefully that comes out before I start my next chain of events starting from Acen in a couple weeks. (This sentence weights on me more than you think.)
I should also put some thoughts down about the upcoming changing of guards with the josei seiyuu wave. I did have this few weeks of break so I can go back to recouping for things. Or rather, from Aceon onward I will be kinda busy for the rest of the summer–like after Labor Day basically.
This means I actually watched a lot of anime in March and April. I went back and basically finished Atri the anime. This season, I actually felt engaged with a number of the offerings. The last two seasons on the other hand was kind of a dull thing. Maybe it’s just I didn’t watch the shows I would enjoy. Or maybe I should watch more Netflix. Anyways, going to list some for this season that I am/will be/had been watching.
Lazarus – The show they finally end up making after like 30 years, IDK. A huge miss to be dub only in legit stream means in the US though.
Cinderella Grey – Other than Alexandros being there and breaking the combo of Umamusume signing the OP, it’s just as you’d expect. Which is great. Just like the EN game release date is now set.
Witch Watch – Possibly my fav this season. It’s a romcom with a pop culture edge and Narichan nailed her role.
Maebashi Witches – It’s a kids show that is dressed like a young adult, and it’s oddly amusing to me.
Aharen-san – Not sure if I’ll continue in S2, probably will drop if I don’t have the time, given it’s getting stale already.
Zatsutabi – It’s ok and one of the three chill anime girls-do-cute-things anime this season (Kadokawa).
Summer Pockets – I might save this for later but it’s ok?
Aru Majo ga Shinu Made/Once Upon a Witch’s Death – This production is too gucci to, uh, Drop(s).
Ballpark de Tsukamaete – Too many baseball seiyuu in this. Also the subject matter is one I like. Oddly enough the main character is the one thing that sticks out.
GQuuuuuuX – I enjoyed Beginnings enough, so it’s time to see what Tsurumaki has left for the rest of “us” who aren’t like myself. I mean it’s a gorgeous work already.
Apocalypse Hotel – Sold me after 2 eps, just a matter of finding time to keep up.
Takamine-san – Probably will still watch, if not to completion.
YOUR FORMA – I have a Samsung tablet so this is actually something I can easily pull up on my TV. That said this show feels like a 2010s anime.
Rock Lady – This is also an anime kinda made for me, so I feel obliged to continue.
Anne Sherley – Surprisingly great, thanks to Honoka’s spirited performance and dialing the grating aspect of this brat to the right level.
KOWLOON GENERIC ROMANCE – Also sold me from the start but I feel this is bait… I will wait for the season to end probably to finish.
Ossan Kensei/From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman – I don’t like the harem aspect so not sure how far I’ll get…
mono – the highest profile girls-do-cute-things anime this season (Aniplex). I probably will finish it but it’s like an inferior Yurucamp anime reminding you about Yurucamp.
Meshi Umashi/Food for the Soul – The third or my favorite cute-girls-do-cute-things this season (PA Works). It’s the reunion of the Non Non Biyori creatives? It is also an original media mix.
Yandere Elf – Takamiina in the lead role of this particular character niche that she seems to end up with every time? As an American I don’t even think it fits her that well, but maybe this is a cultural thing. It’s a trashy anime so I might not survive it, but it is short.
Speaking of shorts there is a Uma short and a Lycoris Recoil short, and others that don’t get wide distribution (Kaiju #8 and Frieren)? It’s been a while since I’ve followed so many in one season. Let’s see if I can keep this up.
If I don’t, it is because…Umamusume EN (Steam, and Android/iOS!), and for sure, Gakuen IDOLM@STER. I can’t play Sense for my life but I can play the other two just fine and it’s been a lot of fun. The game’s commu are super enjoyable and as someone who don’t bother most of the time it’s even gotten me to read (almost) all of it. The gameplay is a bit broken at time, and RNG at times, but it’s part of the game and they copied the right things from Slay the Spire, let’s just say.
With the first anniversary later this month I probably will be stuck in this gacha hell for some time. I hope I am not totally bankrupt lol. Uma EN will be right before AX, and AX as usual will conflict with the usual MLTD anniversary event. If Uma EN is going to be the first produce scenario from the JP game, it will be a huge time sink so I don’t know, it’ll suck for a while. At least I know early-game Uma is kind of skippable.
Anyways, feel free to say hi if I run into you at Acen, London, Berlin, Gakumas 1st HS, Dere Okinawa, LiSA NYC, AX, Ado NJ, 765AS, Animethon, Anime NYC, Anisama…and more…
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).
In the 21st century, there are few bigger “modern visual culture” developments on the Japanese side of the thing than 2.5D. What more can we ask for to employ the entire cache of cultural and industrial (it’s not just “geinokai,” it’s pipelines?) expertise of the show business by blowing up cartoon characters with the breath of (human) life, giving them likeness unto ourselves? In short, it’s about plays (the old fashion kind, done on a stage) based on novels, games, anime, and manga. In this particular case, we are talking about a media-mix franchise that is original, which yielded a manga and anime series, which boils down into a 5-piece band that are played by the humans behind the respective character voices themselves.
This is the ultimate dream-come-true. It is great that Minako Kotobuki can go at the keyboard from her Kyoto Animation gigs in the late ’00s, but it took a few more years before Aki Toyosaki can strum the guitar in any respectable way in front of a paying crowd. The K-ON generation pointed out to everyone that, well, there was even a K-ON generation to begin with. This girls band dream took shape later when the then-IM@S-Producer-lore-turn-yet-into-another-BanG-Dream-cover-song AIMI played guitar for the character Julia, launching the idea that we should just make a whole media mix video game thing. Nearly 10 years later, BanG Dream continues to own this segment and capture the dreams and discretionary spending of kids and adults all over the place.
I say kids, because at Togenashi Togeari’s one-man live on Feb. 7, 2025 at Pacifico Yokohama, I saw a teen with her mother a few rows in front of me at the show. This was Togetoge’s (henceforth) first solo show in a theater. It’s a stretch because they previously played at bigger venues (even moonlighting at Anisama 2024). As a band that started in 2023, they already have a show at the Nippon Budokan in September 2025.
My seatmate and I talked during the 20-minute intermission at the Togetoge show, and we talked about how TrySail has a show coming up in a few weeks at also Nippon Budokan, which is their first time at that venue, celebrating their 10th year as a unit. It served unintentionally as a nice contrast because both of us thought, after the announcement of Togetoge’s Budokan show at the end of the concert, that it was really soon. Maybe even too soon. I don’t think it is inappropriate at any event, too soon or not, because this is a great example of marketing striking the iron while it is hot.
What is hot? Togetoge is currently the best all-around incarnation of the girl band dreams media mix projects. This time we have something that is rock and roll at the core, a high school dropout meets a high school delinquent? It is hilariously traditional but it is packaged with that Bang Dream trapping that it goes down just as smooth. Except this time it’s got some fiber to go along with that rock-n-roll caloric intake. The much less substantive ball of fun that is the usual BanG Dream bands pre-MyGO!!!!! definitely still is the rule of the land, but within the rules, Togetoge is brand new and growing fast. China loves this stuff. MyGO hit a home run over there, but I think so did Togetoge, it’s just there isn’t a vast network of cover-song-rhythm-gamers already covering it. There’s something about starting mostly from scratch, as it were.
And this is why you can get to Budokan too soon. It took BanG Dream a few years too (and also probably too soon by some standards). It’s hot, strike it while the iron is hot. It’s BanG Dream v2. It is definitely the “more taste less calories” version in the 2.5D.
Of course, more discerning people (or anyone FWIW) can have differing opinions on this. In person, I already saw a big improvement in the playing and showsmanship of Togetoge from their Anisama 2024 appearance. Granted two members are still on hiatus, so we have pros playing the drums and on keys–the vibe I get is that now the three cast members are actually showboating, playing their roles, having fun while knowing they’ve got “training wheels” on drums and keys. It’s the best 2.5D. Compared to MyGO or Ave Mujica, those people are in a play and we are just along for the ride. Maybe you prefer that. I prefer my girls bands be bands first and stage actors second, if you can tell the difference. This is what makes RAS great and Popipa forever best in a live house or on the streets and probably not nowhere else. Or, you can be like the eternally popular Roselia–just not be a girls band at all. (I guess this applies to some other groups I omitted also.)
Girls Band Cry is rock. I think MyGO too. My bones with BanG Dream is that they created a good thing–MyGO anime–and then promptly carved this square peg into a round peg to put the media mix machine’s round holes. Maybe the kids love all the drama, but to me that is second (and naturally flows from) to the core idea of having relevant conflicts in stories. And if the driver of that is because someone’s mom died, we be in B-rated Korean drama territory. At least give me B-rated Japanese cinema tropes (that is GBC).
