in reverse chronological order! use the side links to jump to a specific date/piece. more "article"-like entries are written with capital titles, while personal ones are lowercase
it's weird to me that the vast majority of vocaloid fans nowadays weren't there when the yunomi stuff happened, because that was such a major defining Thing. and honestly even if people know about it, they didn't see the fallout actually happen, which i did. it was so fucked up because there were like maybe 2 or 3 instances of actual wrongdoing (aka she traced over someone else's artwork, iirc it was some official art for some anime (without credit and i thiiink as paid commissions)), and then like five billion other instances of tracing bits and pieces of stock photos. which like who gives a flying fuck about tracing stock photos. but there was this whole callout video in jp and i'm 100% sure they did it for the clout and shit-stirring. absolute mess. i feel bad for her still
(after i wrote this a friend told me she's active again as a shoujo mangaka? good for her)
thinking about how everyone was so shocked they're openly homophobic, but i wasn't? not even a little bit. it's really clear through their songs and the worldview they reflect. i've known secret black vow was like that ever since it came out (i still liked it regardless).
to use that song as an example, the whole crux is that rin's love for miku as two girls is a waste and impossible to fulfill. that's why she gives up her angel wings to transform into a man. at which point miku immediately loves him and they elope on what was her wedding day and have lots of passionate sex. and this is exposed when a fellow angel finds him (her) and shoots, which breaks the illusion and reveals rin as a girl before she dies. so the "sin" rin committed is what, exactly? if it were just giving up her wings to become human, i don't think they would have killed her for it. it was the fact that she "deceived" miku and "led her astray" (which now that i type it out sounds pretty transphobic too! bonus!). miku cheated on her fiance, with the angle that if rin hadn't returned as a man to steal her away, she wouldn't have faltered.
meanwhile, the art and lyrics show rin/miku touching as this sensual, forbidden thing. they both taste the forbidden fruit! so it's like literally the definition of "girls can kiss each other but only if it's sexy to me personally, and they can't be actually serious about it because that's weird". the fact that people associated hitoshizukuP with homoerotic themes in their songs makes the whole thing even ickier! i say that as someone who still enjoys black vow for what it is, because i have a Thing for homophobia in my yuri (it's tasty). i normally scoff at people talking about "fetishization" because it's frequently uninformed bullshit, but, uh. it applies perfectly here. how about that!
pic below is official art for the song
was listening to secret mirage (imasCG) again and it really blows me away every time how it's just.... yuri. i don't just mean that it's gay or whatever when i say that, i mean that it unabashedly plays on all the classic yuri and class S tropes. the whole song is like a love letter to it??
and like if it was just cygames here i wouldn't be surprised because they don't shy away from that stuff, but it's bamco. and bamco are notoriously homophobic, so i'm legitimately amazed they got this one through. i wonder if it's because it's class S-ish, and therefore balancing on the tightrope of plausible deniability? but that association is if anything what makes it so explicit. this isn't a complaint, mind you. i'm just shocked bamco gave this the green light but didn't for, say, ichimizu in aikatsu (which is a ramble for another day).
speaking of ichimizu though... check out the event card art for secret mirage, and then compare it to the other two images (best i could find on short notice):
those moonlit gazebos, huh?
was reading old threads on gaia for fun, and one that stuck in my brain was a discussion about being lgbt online in the 00s and what that was like. i didn't join gaia til 2008, and didn't actually come out til years after that, but.... i mean, it's not like it wasn't already there. i've cracked up many, many times reading my old deviantart journals which were full of shit like "here are my opinions on this adult yuri game i played recently! idk my sexuality though, im probably straight".
it wasn't even like i ever liked guys is the super funny part? for an embarrassingly long portion of my life, i thought attraction to guys was just something that happened if you liked him as a person enough. men just look like weird dogs to me! even "oh he's handsome" is incomprehensible to me. i figured it was some feature i hadn't unlocked yet! this became increasingly isolating because my peers as a young teen were crushing on bieber and arguing over team edward vs jacob, and i truly felt like i was some fucked up different species before long.
if i'm being honest, i didn't even "get" the language around attraction until like a couple years ago. it's all metaphorical, you know? wtf are butterflies? if someone had explained to me that it's like the rush of terror and excitement you'd get on a roller coaster or like, free-falling, i would've understood! that like Gut Woosh. as things stood i was psychoanalyzing myself every time i felt it because "why the hell am i scared, is there something wrong with my brain??". autism things?
to return to the original point, if i'm being honest, it was much easier to be a lesbian online back then than now. there were lots of people who thought my yuri was weird, but they left me alone. i was never bullied or harassed online (i sure fucking was irl though). the worst was men who'd push boundaries they shouldn't have, like the adult man recommending adult games with lesbian sex to an 11 year old, or the several adult men chatting about sexual things regularly with a 13~15 year old via IRC. i try not to think about them, or god forbid repeat their mistakes. there's a reason i don't talk to minors online; if you're not sure you can keep that boundary responsibly, it's better to keep away. and... well, my social skills are ass! but that's a tangent.
from i'd say the mid-2010s onward, the internet has gotten so much crueler about that stuff. especially as an adult, ive gotten like 500x more harassment over being a lesbian online than i ever did in the 00s. it's not about the label, or the identity. it's about being able to talk about girls and yuri ships without getting death threats and vicious gossip, or bare minimum assholes telling me i'm making their fav characters "weird". the terminally online moralism has actually only worsened that, because shipping is performative now and you have to do it the Right Way(tm). in my late teens i made myself sick with guilt over feeling attracted to my fav character, because wasn't that creepy? wasn't that wrong? sex negativity does some insane damage lmfao.
i get really sick of apologizing for being a human being. and what sucks is that the left is making me just as fearful of that as the right is. if you aren't perfect, you're bad, and i'm too flawed and weird to ever pass for that. i'm sorry, kid me. i wanna say it gets better, but we'll have to wait it out a while longer i think.
when i was in japan, my friend i was staying with (hereafter referred to as M) was baffled and afraid of how much i can eat in one sitting. like, i'm 4'10"/147cm and hover around 110~120lb as my baseline. i'm small! M is actually twice my size, but i'd frequently outeat them. or i'd eat roughly the same amount which would leave me still mildly hungry but satisfied, vs M who would be absolutely stuffed. i was probably eating enough for 3 people at some points, lol.
the reason i was thinking about this again is, last night (for my mother's bf's birthday), we went to a steak restaurant! it was fucking delicious, btw. but i ate more than the rest of my family and was the only one to not be uncomfortable or have a stomachache after. i think it was like.. two butter rolls, four or five potato skins (covered in bacon and cheese, and dipped in sour cream), several fried pickles dipped in ranch, an 8oz steak (rare, sirloin, delicious) with onions and mushrooms, and a big baked potato (with more sour cream). the only thing of mine i didn't polish off were my fries, and that's because i ran out of time + figured i could just eat them the day after. pretty sure my family think i'm a monster now.
i really just love food. as far as i can tell i'm probably one of those people that have extra tastebuds? sometimes taste becomes overwhelming to me, even, if it's very strong. that's why i like having sides so i can rotate around my plate, and also something to drink. but it also means i get so much more nuance in taste. i often don't have words for it, so i can't describe it to other people, but... basically, when i like food, i LIKE it. it's this instant burst of dopamine and yummy! of course i want to eat lots of something i enjoy that much. conversely, when my mental health is bad, everything i eat starts to taste like cardboard and i just won't bother. it's a bad habit of mine.
Rough sketch of Yuzuki
made for Moe Gacha.
Early HR card of Yuzuki from GF Kari.
Before Girlfriend (Kari), there was Moe Gacha (萌えガチャ). It was CyberAgent's first shot at a bishoujo social game, and released early 2011. Unlike the large cast and card system of its successor, Moe Gacha's gameplay was simple: you spin for items to unlock content for the five pursueable girls. Content in this case could be voice lines, or sexy costumes, or voiced stories with unique drawn CGs. If you google it, you'll see promotional pictures and screenshots of those five girls: Rui Kamijo, Mikoto Kanzaki, Kyoko Tachibana, Kaede Yuge (more on her later), and Makoto Hiragi. The game is already incredibly niche; it stopped being updated by 2013, and shuttered officially in 2016. Of the people that are even aware it existed, I'm sure many of them aren't aware there was supposed to be a 6th girl. She was all set to release and it never happened. The "why" has a lot to do with Japan's climate for social games at the time, and I'll share what I've read here.
Moe Gacha's system was what you'd call a comp(lete) gacha (コンプガチャ). The idea is that you have to pull every item in a set to unlock another, more special item (that can't be obtained in any other way). These were notably banned in May of 2012. This put Moe Gacha's entire basis into legal question, and they were forced to announce a sudden change of service. Paid currency could no longer be obtained or used, and the game would no longer receive any updates under the new law. And... that was that. The Twitter account for it made its last original tweet in October of 2012, and RT'd Girlfriend (Kari)'s posts until the beginning of 2013. After that, it was radio silence.
So, where does Yuzuki come in? The game's hiatus was extremely sudden. Makoto Hiragi had been the fifth girl, added in an update roughly two months after release. In February of 2012, they added the costume change feature. By May, they were prepping for Yuzuki's planned addition that June, along with updates to the touch expression system, and the promise of "more new characters". They had a lot still cooking, and they were forced to throw out the whole pot. It's kind of sad? I'm not going to pretend comp gacha isn't scummy, but it really is a shame. Nothing related to her Moe Gacha appearance ever came to light, and it soon fell into obscurity. The one piece of information we did get was her seiyuu: Kadowaki Mai.
Girlfriend (Kari) released in October of 2012. It kept the five girls featured in Moe Gacha, with updated designs and settings (to fit into the new Seiou School canon), and... In its initial lineup, who was there but Yuzuki Kiriyama? In a funny turn of events, she became the first girl original to GF (Kari) to be revealed and have a seiyuu announced. She remains there to this day, fangirling over science fiction and aliens, and even got a solo character song on volume 6 of the Vocal CDs. Her debut may not have gone as planned, but she still made it. Girlfriend (Kari) is still going as of this entry, despite being a dinosaur in the mobile game scene, and shows no sign of stopping. It's more or less a happy ending.
Art of Kaede from Moe Gacha.
Now, remember how I mentioned Kaede Yuge?
She's interesting. Like the others and Yuzuki, she was present in the initial lineup of characters for GF (Kari), but with a catch: she had no voice. For many years, the game had a smattering of girls who only had junk N cards and lacked voices. Kaede was among these, but why? She had a proper seiyuu as of Moe Gacha, which was Hibiku Yamamura. Quick reading shows that Yamamura changed agencies in July of 2012, so maybe that's it? GF (Kari) eventually gave her a new voice... in 2018, casting Yuki Nagaku. I have lots of questions here. They gradually gave those N girls voices, and Kaede was among the last to get one, despite being the most egregious case. There is also at least one instance of a voiced girl having her seiyuu replaced due to some exterior issue (Kasuga was originally voiced by Risa Taneda, and was recast as Mayumi Tsukishima following Taneda's extended health-related hiatus). In fairness, Taneda's hiatus began in the latter half of 2016, and Kasuga wasn't officially recast until 2021, so I suppose that tracks? Maybe they really wanted to find the right person to replace her. We have no way of knowing.
This does put a very interesting context to QP:flapper's involvement early on. According to their interview, they were brought onto the project in spring of 2012, and went into a hardcore crunch period before release in October. I wonder if CyberAgent was feeling the pressure, and had to bring the new game's release closer? Maybe they panicked? It sounds like they genuinely cared about both projects. All in all, I'm not sure what to make of it. Fascinating though, huh?
(As a bonus footnote, Moe Gacha had a companion game with male characters instead, which released at the start of 2012. It had the same fate of a lost sixth character (Takeru Kitashiro), who was later brought into Boyfriend (Kari). Which, uh, RIP.)
earlier today, i made a putinP/numtack05 themed stamp to add to the pile, and so i went googling for shiuka's old art, and... i wound up on a themed tumblr blog that hadn't been updated since like 2013. it felt weirdly familiar, and then i realized: i made that, that was me (age 15). it was so surreal. the weirdest part was seeing stuff i'd written on it, and how awkward my "voice" was. like i was trying too hard but didn't get it in the first place? i know that a year or two before that, i started speaking differently online. like, i decided i'd tone down my vocabulary and start using more slang etc, because i wanted to make friends and not stick out so badly. i thought i was doing pretty okay for myself. looking at it now, it's almost painful to read.
in 2014, i watched fresh precure for the first time. i was hooked almost immediately, binged the whole thing, and it ended up being an all time favorite anime of mine. lovesetsu as a ship hit me like a truck, and setsuna as a character especially. it was so confusing for me at the time, because this was on the heels of me escaping a multi-year, online sexual predation situation. it fucked with my head really badly, and i wound up trying to change my entire identity to run away from it. i hid behind neopronouns and a nonbinary gender (this is about me specifically, not other people) and being aroace. in reality, i'm none of those things at all. i'm purposefully cis because being a girl gives me actual joy, and i'm a 100% allosexual lesbian. i finally came to terms with that again when i was 18 or so. it took a few years! it took even longer for me to realize i was undiagnosed autistic. but the reason i bring all that up is, for one reason or another, i really really connected with fresh. i wasn't ready to say how or why, but it was so important to me. lovesetsu was so important to me.
i'm 27 years old as of this august. my little brother (now 21) is watching it for the first time with me, and this is the first time i'm seeing it in over 10 years. i get it. i understand younger me's feelings completely, and probably better than she did. yeah, of course you watched love save setsuna from her self-destruction, the undeniable chemistry between them (it's an all-time yuri), and the earnest "social awkwardness" she displays in the second half of the show and knew you loved her. i honestly feel kind of embarrassed talking about it, which i guess goes to show just how deep it went. it wasn't a kin thing. if anything, it was closer to a crush! which is why it left me so confused back then. kind of a funny parallel in retrospect! LOL
the more years pass, the more my head clears up, and the more like a person and human being i become. i spent a lot of my teens dissociated, i think. i was mentally detached, isolated, and very much self-destructing. some months before i watched fresh for the first time, i was actually in the hospital for a suicide attempt. even before that, i'd dropped out of school and became a full time shut-in, rotting away in my room. i went through all different meds over the years since. abilify zombified me for a decade. but all of that is behind me now? i'm on good, helpful meds now, so the zombieness melted away and i can finally feel Real Emotion. i started a new one recently that knocked out my RSD, and i'd never realized until then how much it trapped me. i'm still a work in progress, and i'll always be (so long as i'm alive), but the more clearly i can feel and think, the more sense stuff makes. i didn't have context then, but now i have so much more, and i can reframe it all and understand it better.
younger me made many mistakes and hurt other people. she did terrible things i can never, ever take back. all these years i swore i'd remake myself as someone kinder, that eventually i'd rack up enough points through my actions/choices to be a good person(tm). i still have nightmares about that ugliness coming out of me and people i love abandoning me. i can't even really call that past tense, because i still have a hard time controlling myself when i get angry, and saying shit just to lash out. so the cruel parts of myself, the awkward and insensitive parts, and the selfish parts haunt me whether i'm awake or asleep, and it starts to feel like, for as often as i apologize, i fuck up even more. i've battled self-loathing almost my entire life. i can't say it's gotten any easier, either.
but i'm here. i feel love for my family, and my kitty serena. i feel happiness and excitement about my interests. i can get totally absorbed in the pleasure of a good song. i visited japan twice now, and i'm itching to go back. i still draw. i still write, though less often now. my japanese skill has gotten a hell of a lot better, so that's opened up a lot too. the other night, i went outside onto the front porch and watched the storm: pouring rain, wind rocking the trees and pulling waves of water down the asphalt, flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder... it was soothing. i like knowing that i'm alive, that i actually really do exist in this world. i have a perfectly human body and brain, and all kinds of experiences waiting for me. i'm not rotted through or toxic. i have just as much of a place here as the crickets chirping, the summer geckos that sit on the walls outside, and the pigeons cooing and trilling with their holographic coats. if i see the worth in their lives (which i do and have protected), then mine shouldn't be worth any less.
maybe i'll never have a career, or the standard adult life you're supposed to achieve by your 30s. maybe i'll always be on the outside looking in. but there are things you can only see from the outside, aren't there? i wish i could tell younger me that, but i guess she'll figure it out.
Platinum Stars was controversial. It ditched the 2/OFA produce mechanics entirely for more of a rhythm game approach, functioned on an eternally looping time schedule, and (most egregiously) had a scummy microtransaction lootbox system. It's because of that last point that they released Stella Stage not long after, as well as why Stella failed to sell (the worst turnout since Dearly Stars!). PS is like a dirty word among iM@S fans. It's also the last legitimately good game.
I'm not just saying this as a RitsukoP who was disgusted by OFA's writing choices (although I can't deny that isn't a factor). PS's gameplay is fun. It's much more balanced and well paced than people give it credit for, so the writing being better than 2 and OFA is just a bonus — although being real, that particular bar is below sea level. I'm not here to talk about that, though. I'll get into OFA's failings some other time.
PS works around a few core ideas. Those are:
The whole premise is that 765AS have come to this training camp in Nowhere, Countryside and have to live and work together as they hone their skills. It carries on OFA's changes of lacking an overall time limit (eg the 52 week limit of arcade), and the ability to produce everyone and freely swap between. Once the tutorial is over, you've chosen 3 girls to produce. You can unlock more girls with game progression, but for now you just have those three, as well as one or two costumes and a small handful of songs. From this point, it's up to you to take them out on jobs and work toward ranking up each girl's idol level.
The main thing is, it's actually pretty slow. Idol level is dependent on fan count, and the only way to get fans is to have them perform. Producer level then is a reflection of your own experience, and it's only when that goes up that you get to add a new girl to your roster (along with one new song). The result is that you're going to be spending a lot of time with these girls, and that's a good thing; work and lessons increase their stats, and slowly fill up each girl's heart meter. The heart meter determines how many appeals you get each performance. With appeals being a significant source of points in scoring, building that up is crucial — and the only way to do that is to use her.
What this looks like in practice is: you unlock one new girl, slot her into your unit, she starts gaining fans and stats alongside the other members, and then ranking her up gives you enough P level experience to add another new girl. You end up spending time with all of them, because the more you do, the more you're rewarded. This is the case for nearly everything in PS, and the overall pace is slower to accommodate it.
Costumes and accessories are obtained in one of two ways: as random drops (gift boxes) after performances, and as guaranteed rewards for clearing certain milestones. The system has been offline for years, but this was where the microtransactions came in. You could pay for special currency ("P drops") that would increase the drop rate. It was just in quantity, not quality, so you could just as easily get four basic gifts (usually items) or one gold three silver. Silver and gold boxes have costumes and accessories inside; silver is what you'll see most and it has the largest pool, while gold has high grade things inside. They have a chance to drop after all performances, and in my experience, have a decent rate as-is.
There are three points in mind when you're picking an outfit. The first is type, with each costume assigned one (examples include Heartful Lady, Shiny Star) and every job requiring one. The second point is the level (strength) of a costume or accessory. Higher is better, etc. The third point is bonuses. The amount on a single piece depends on its letter grade rarity, but that might be a bonus to appeals, bursts, combo... It could also unlock additional appeal types (Drive Duo, Trio, Quintet) or burst types. This creates a strategy challenge. (The Drive skills also require stacking to work; you can use a Drive Duo by itself, but to use Drive Trio you need Duo too, and the same for Quintet and Trio. A girl also needs a minimum of 2 appeal hearts to use Duo, 3 for Trio, etc. So there's a lot of juggling involved sometimes).
Let's take a look at Stella. Its selling point is the Coaching Board, which uses a point currency to unlock bonuses permanently per-girl. There are four sections of the board (Solo, Duo, Trio, Quintet). So if you want, say, Iori to have Drive Quintet, you need to spend points in Duo and Trio beforehand. Appeal hearts are also gotten through Coaching, so getting a minimum of 4 will cost you even more. You get points by clearing lives, but that amount is pooled to use between everyone. The player therefore then uses all the points on their fav(s) and neglects the other girls. Producing the others becomes a resource drain! Other bonuses include ones for bursts, combo, score, stats... Crucial stuff that, in PS, was gotten through costumes and accessories that could be shared across girls, or plain old effort.
Completing a route in Stella is, past a certain point, stupidly easy. If you put a girl in your unit for a while, she'll quickly have enough to rank her up all the way to S. You unlock everyone not long after starting to play, so you'll have multiple girls neglected while you get your favorites to S and spend points on them. Costumes keep their types, but with all bonuses gone, you have no reason to use most of them (accessories especially). I wound up rotating between the same ~5. There are monthly "trends", but that's only relevant for (optional) high level endgame content. Content that, by the way, is only available for a couple weeks in a year's schedule. To attempt it at all you need to plan for it in advance. After all, Stella added a cooldown system! If you use one girl too many times in a row, you get a smack on the wrist for stressing her out.
The heart meter sticks around in Stella, funnily enough. It just does absolutely nothing. Increasing bond has no effect on gameplay whatsoever, but if you max it out, you unlock a sound effect for the rhythm game. That's... cool, I guess? But it makes me wonder why they kept that feature at all, which is a common thread in Stella. It's like a hasty patch job on top of PS with a new coat of paint.
So, what's the writing like, then? In PS, every girl is loved. Their stories are condensed, but keep all the major emotional beats, and throughout it the Producer character is supportive and kind. Ritsuko's story, for example, revolves around you encouraging her to make herself a priority. "765pro isn't more important than you, because you're an important part of 765pro." You get to have lighthearted banter, show her worry and care (convincing her to rest by pointing out her shoulder pain, or giving her a well-earned massage), share tender, emotional moments... Her personality quirks and flaws are rendered lovingly, and not once does P mock her (unlike OFA). Other girls I've played through are framed by similar love for them. It's a game for people who love 765AS — fitting for a 10th anniversary title.
Stella's writing, by contrast, is all about Shiika (the then-newest member of 961pro). Every girl's story is about her relationship or dynamic with Shiika, and it's all... well, nothingburger, to be honest. Ami's was really bad, with hers just being several commus of funny RPG references. There's so much Shiika focus that she overshadows the actual main characters, especially since she has her own mini route as well. I don't even dislike her, but it's hard to even call Stella a 765AS game when they're just sidekick vehicles to show off Shiika.
Some of you have noticed that I haven't brought up Starlit Season even once. That is because Litmas (as I enjoy calling it) isn't a 765AS game, or even a proper iM@S game at all. The inability to produce and focus on whatever idols you want? The middle finger given to "everyone can sing everything"? I'm a notorious 2 hater, but Litmas makes 2 look like a solid, respectable entry. Combined with the questionable multi-branch approach, it's as much a 765AS game as Pop Links or Mirishita. Sure, they're in it, but that doesn't make it their game.
PS was the last good, true iM@S game, and that's a hill I'll die on. Don't let a fun game be ruined by greedy executive meddling! Give it a fair chance. You might just be surprised.
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