THE iDOLM@STER > Other iM@S discussion

I Hate Other iM@S derived works

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Chance4U:
All this DS hate has been bothering me. It's like no one reads the strategy guides anymore..

When DS was released, it was to be the first account of Second Vision available. The goal for this "era" would be to expand the world of iM@S. As you can see with not only CG and ML, but in the anime and movie, their world has stretched further than what was thought to be possible. DS has pretty much become a footnote in the long list of iM@S history, but the series wouldn't be the same without this game.

This is a quote from Wikipedia. I know it's a horrible source, but it actually contains a fairly good summary of a portion of the game guide:


--- Quote ---When developing the game's three idols, the staff first decided on going with an archetypal "cheerful" girl and "slightly brooding and negative" girl. When thinking about what to do with the last idol, Kujioka suggested having the idol be male instead, and Tanaka thought this would be okay. It was also suggested that one of the 876 Pro idols be related to one of the 765 Pro idols, leading to Ritsuko Akizuki being chosen to be Ryo's cousin. When developing the idols' characters, creating one idol's details resulted in equivalent changes to the other two idols. For instance, this development technique ultimately led to the image color for the idols being decided based on the idols' surnames.
--- End quote ---

In other articles within the guide, it says that Ryo is a male due to the fact that it may have been awkward for adult men to play the game as a teen girl. His gender was chosen for both gameplay and surprise purposes, and he was even marketed as such in the promotional articles by gaming magazines. Now given the difference between the DS ending and the way the manga ended, it looks like they wanted to go in a different direction than what Ryo is currently in. When the last DS manga was published Ryo was revealed to be a boy and all was fine. Bonus artwork was even produced of Ryo in his boyish costume.

Then Jupiter practically made the fandom revolt, and destroyed the hope for Ryo to become manly. After Jupiter's debut, works by the Neue Green artist that included Ryo reverted him into still being in a position of acting like a girl while the other DS characters actually kept most of their development from their stories. If Gravure For You's tie in magazines and introduction videos are to believed, Ai, Eri, and even Cineria have at least some character development. Ryo seems to been handed the short stick with not only his current image, but marketing as well (thanks to SHINY TV). The anime even references the time 876 spent with 765, but no change has been given to Ryo. The lack of development appears not only in the official anime artwork and episodes, but in concept sketches for 876's appearance, where even Eri can be seen as being more outgoing, but Ryo is still in a dress.

Now, I know quite a few of you are still crying that "Ai is a Haruka clone", but so much more than basic introductions went into these character creations. Ai's "clone-ness" of Haruka is pretty much only surface level stuff, and she's actually more in line with Yukiho's self depreciation with Yayoi's energy. To say that she doesn't have a resemblance and probably some character overlap with Haruka would be a lie, but she is a very different character and reacts very differently in situations when compared to Haruka (such as when deciding to throw Miki in a pool).

When Toshiyuki Kubooka and Kiyotaka Tamiya worked together to design the 876 idols (as in their initial concepts), the staff even made sure the dances had been completely thought through. Ryo's boy and girl voice performances were even decided at that point.

From the old iM@S blog we have this:

--- Quote ---For the dance sequences during performances, Kujioka chose to employ talent star Fumi Sakura, as opposed to professional dancers who had been used in The Idolmaster games up to that point. Kujioka wanted the dance sequences to be closer to what he calls an "idol's aura"—a certain emotional charm that is not a part of an idol's skill at dancing, according to him. Also, because of the idols in Dearly Stars are young and are just starting out, Kujioka told Sakura to purposefully mess up some dance portions to reflect this inexperience. The chief music director Kouji Nakagawa told Satoru Kousaki, the composer of the game's theme song "HELLO!!", that he wanted it to be "similar to the opening theme of an anime." It was decided beforehand who the three composers would be for the other three songs introduced in Dearly Stars—"ALIVE", "Precog" and "Dazzling World". When discussing who would compose which song, Go Shiina said he wanted to compose the song for the game's main idol, so he was given in charge of composing Ai's song "ALIVE". Producer Youzou Sakagami pointed out that as a ballad, "ALIVE" does not seem like a typical idol song, but as noted by Nakagawa, the song is meant to reflect that fact that Ai's mother Mai originally sang the song once she became a prominent idol.
--- End quote ---

So yeah, DS gameplay wise sucked although according to my research, some fans apparently had a bigger problem with the fact that 876 was drawn instead of modeled in 3D for the promotions. The depth of the character's stories was different from 765's routes. 876's stories heavily involved several other characters with complex backgrounds of their own (Yumeko, Manami, Cineria, Reiko, Director Igarashi) rather than only family, other idols, or even fans. 876 idols have their gimmicks too, but a lot of thought was put behind them, and with the exception of Ryo, they've grown from their experiences.

tl:dr I'm not saying DS is perfect. It's just.. different.

ninjamitsuki:
I'm also really miffed about Bamco completely erasing all of Ryo's development and making him into a gimmick. It's always been incredibly jarring that the entire ending is just ignored. I actually really love his natural voice. Albeit I think Ai has the most interesting route in Dearly Stars.

Really, the "bad" things about Dearly Stars are mostly due to the hardware limitations. I think DS stands in nice with the console games, albeit with a much different approach in that it is from an idol's perspective.

Virgofall:
I think I have to echo a lot of Okayu's sentiments. It probably wouldn't be so bad if they were their own, like (I don't remember the name of SideM's production company off the bat, but here). Or they could've put them in 876, since there aren't many idols there and it could've given them a chance to look a bit more at Eri/Ai/Ryo.

And speaking of the latter...


--- Quote from: Chance4U on September 25, 2014, 08:11:29 am ---In other articles within the guide, it says that Ryo is a male due to the fact that it may have been awkward for adult men to play the game as a teen girl. His gender was chosen for both gameplay and surprise purposes, and he was even marketed as such in the promotional articles by gaming magazines. Now given the difference between the DS ending and the way the manga ended, it looks like they wanted to go in a different direction than what Ryo is currently in. When the last DS manga was published Ryo was revealed to be a boy and all was fine. Bonus artwork was even produced of Ryo in his boyish costume.

Then Jupiter practically made the fandom revolt, and destroyed the hope for Ryo to become manly. After Jupiter's debut, works by the Neue Green artist that included Ryo reverted him into still being in a position of acting like a girl while the other DS characters actually kept most of their development from their stories. If Gravure For You's tie in magazines and introduction videos are to believed, Ai, Eri, and even Cineria have at least some character development. Ryo seems to been handed the short stick with not only his current image, but marketing as well (thanks to SHINY TV). The anime even references the time 876 spent with 765, but no change has been given to Ryo. The lack of development appears not only in the official anime artwork and episodes, but in concept sketches for 876's appearance, where even Eri can be seen as being more outgoing, but Ryo is still in a dress.
--- End quote ---

Probably my largest issue with Ryo. You want character development? Well you didn't like Jupiter (initially) so nope. (I, personally, didn't care about Jupiter's presence.) I completely understand why Ryo was in DS, but since they pretty much killed his character development... it's very hard for me to say "I want to see 876 have more than a cameo in another game" because I know his character development's basically going to get screwed over again for the sake of his character type - yet, we know if he gets cut, we're gonna have iM@S2 360 all over again, and I wouldn't want to see that.

Okayu:

--- Quote from: Chance4U on September 25, 2014, 08:11:29 am ---When DS was released, it was to be the first account of Second Vision available. The goal for this "era" would be to expand the world of iM@S. As you can see with not only CG and ML, but in the anime and movie, their world has stretched further than what was thought to be possible. DS has pretty much become a footnote in the long list of iM@S history, but the series wouldn't be the same without this game.

--- End quote ---
I wouldn't say the world has been expanded honestly. The cast definitely, but we're still in Japan doing the same things as before. With all the talk of worldwide you'd think they would release some type of world tour game for imas eventually.


--- Quote from: Chance4U on September 25, 2014, 08:11:29 am ---In other articles within the guide, it says that Ryo is a male due to the fact that it may have been awkward for adult men to play the game as a teen girl.

--- End quote ---
Riight. Maybe if it was normal adult men, but the fan base is not quite that.


--- Quote from: Chance4U on September 25, 2014, 08:11:29 am ---Then Jupiter practically made the fandom revolt, and destroyed the hope for Ryo to become manly.

--- End quote ---
It wasn't just Jupiter but a combination of things imas 2 and vision 2 had brought. There's long Japanese articles on it if you're interested. Once again imas is a galge, as in a series of games known for being filled with girls, it's not exactly surprising. I think this was just a misunderstanding really. They thought since people liked Ryou, a trap, that they would also like regular male idols as well. While Jupiter eventually grew on some people I can understand why some fans were upset. Their introduction had even teased about how many guys were in the audience but how that didn't matter. While both guy and girl idols exist, there's already a popular female aimed male idol franchise around. Maybe namco had wanted a piece of that too, but I don't think that's what most fans came to idolmaster for in the beginning. Personally from what I've seen thus far male and female idols are sort of different.


--- Quote from: Chance4U on September 25, 2014, 08:11:29 am ---Go Shiina said he wanted to compose the song for the game's main idol, so he was given in charge of composing Ai's song "ALIVE". Producer Youzou Sakagami pointed out that as a ballad, "ALIVE" does not seem like a typical idol song, but as noted by Nakagawa, the song is meant to reflect that fact that Ai's mother Mai originally sang the song once she became a prominent idol.

--- End quote ---
"Main idol", not even trying to hide it. Anyways considering that comment about ALIVE is it the same for Saihyou then, meaning that Chihaya has become a prominent idol at this point?


--- Quote from: Chance4U on September 25, 2014, 08:11:29 am ---So yeah, DS gameplay wise sucked although according to my research, some fans apparently had a bigger problem with the fact that 876 was drawn instead of modeled in 3D for the promotions. The depth of the character's stories was different from 765's routes. 876's stories heavily involved several other characters with complex backgrounds of their own (Yumeko, Manami, Cineria, Reiko, Director Igarashi) rather than only family, other idols, or even fans. 876 idols have their gimmicks too, but a lot of thought was put behind them, and with the exception of Ryo, they've grown from their experiences.

--- End quote ---
I think the 2D part was more due to habit. Even in SP they had models for commus so that's partly why. Honestly I wouldn't mind them carrying over the good parts of DS, the story and perspective change, to 765 as well. Although with OFA's EX eps they have carried over the song tied into the plot idea well. Honestly I don't dislike DS, I certainly think they were better successors to 765 than ML is. I liked how each story had it's own characters and 765 tied in. Although it is easier to write three unique routes than 13.

MetalPredat0r:

--- Quote from: Virgofall on September 25, 2014, 01:32:05 pm ---I think I have to echo a lot of Okayu's sentiments. It probably wouldn't be so bad if they were their own, like (I don't remember the name of SideM's production company off the bat, but here).

--- End quote ---

315Pro

I have to agree with Chance and Virgo. If Ryo should have an actual comeback, he should keep his character development from DS intact and perform as a male. But nooooooooooooo, TGS 2010 happened and now we can't get ANY of that! That's the kind of sh*t I hate! Fans being all whiny and b**chy to the point of the developers ruining something for other fans who don't do that! IT PISSES ME OFF!!!  >:(!

Anyway, after that rare moment of me raging, Virgo bringing up 315Pro, I wonder what people here think of Side M, besdies some people saying it's existence is kinda redundant. I guess it isn't mentioned here as much as Cinderella Girls or Million Live because it's too new, huh?

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