08/03/2016

Welcome back everyone to Blog Medley and this week on Anime Wednesday I’ll be continuing my discussion on The Idolm@ster franchise along with Haruka Amami, one of the most popular characters of the franchise whom I’ve chosen to use as my cover character for the Anime Wednesday icon.

For those who aren’t familiar with The Idolm@ster franchise you’ll be surprised to learn that it’s been around for over a decade now ever since it was first released in 2005 in Japan as an arcade game which has since spanned into multiple console games and more recently into mobile games. It was the first game of its kind where the player is the producer of a production company, 765 Pro, and has to guide one of the 12 girls (or group of girls in the later versions like Shiny Festa) through the perils of the entertainment industry and turn her into a “Top Idol”. Each of the girls has their own background, personality, solo (image) and group songs, and storylines which gave the games excellent replay value. From the top of my head I’d say they’ve probably recorded over 200 songs for this franchise (and that’s not counting their new series The Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls). With the huge success of the games, it was adapted into the anime series  The Idolm@ster, the anime OVA series The Idolm@ster: Shiny Festa, and the movie The Idolm@ster: Kagayaki no Mukougawa e!.

In the anime Haruka is portrayed as a cheerful, energetic, and compassionate 17 year old girl whose dream was to be an idol ever since her father took her to a concert when she was a child. She enjoys baking sweets and sing karaoke in her spare time. She is also  ditzy at times tripping over thin air but that just adds to her charm. However if I have to choose the one trait I love best about her, it would have to be her bright and natural smile which coincidentally is also her number one weapon as an idol. Of the 12 idols in 765 Pro, she has the best smile out of the group as noted by the Futami twins in Episode 2 of the anime

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She has a tendency to hold onto naive dreams like wanting to practice together and hang out with her friends even though they all have jam packed schedules and to get along with everyone even if they’re competitors. But because of the fact that she thinks about others all the time she was the only one fit to lead their idol group 765 Pro All Stars and eventually became their leader during the Idolm@ster movie.

Out of the 12  girls, I would rank her #3 overall based on talent, behind the free spirited #1 Miki Hoshii, who was born to be an idol, personality wise and skill wise. Not only can she grasp people’s attention instantly, her quick grasp of any situation allows her to use her elite talents to their fullest. None of the idols (not even when grouped together) has as much jobs as her and during the movie she lands the leading lady role in a Hollywood movie. Fun fact: Her ability to switch between sleep and work as shown on Episode 26 is legendary.

At #2 sits Haruka’s best friend Chihaya Kisaragi whose elite level singing talent alone gives her this ranking as evidenced by some her beautiful image songs like Arcadia, Nemurihime (Sleeping Beauty), and Yakusoku (Promise) and she was the only one to receive a record deal in New York. However, she is particularly stubborn and her personality can be too serious and stiff at times which occasionally backfires on her as shown throughout the anime.

And although I’ve ranked Haruka at #3, she is the only one (literally) who can keep the two above under control. If it wasn’t for her, Miki would have pursued her career even further without care and burned herself out as she admits in Episode 24 and Chihaya would’ve quit altogether during certain events in the anime. Although Haruka lacks natural born elite talents like the two above, her hard working and bright personality more than makes up for what she lacks. In fact she has one of the most catchiest image songs in  Otome yo Taishi wo Idake!! (Girls, Embrace Your Aspirations!!”). The musical which she stars as the lead role later announced they were touring nationwide at the end of the anime series and she later wins a big award during the movie (but ends up tripping going off stage haha, very Haruka like). What better girl than her to use as my cover image to give inspiration for Anime Wednesday? Also, Miki considers her to be her rival haha.

You can watch it free and fansubbed on Gogoanime.com (Full 25 episodes + 26th special episode along with the 4 episode OVA Shiny Festa series) and the movie at animeseason.com. You’ll find the series is very unique in the aspect that their ending songs and animation are different for each episode since the songs are directly taken from the games. In addition, all insert songs throughout the anime are ones produced from the games. If you fell in love with the music, you can go to CD Japan to buy their Gre@test Hits Albums (there’s 4 of them).

Before I sign off I’ll leave you with these two videos which shows a hilarious scene that occurs in Episode 15. This actually happened to Haruka’s voice actress (also known as Seiyuu) Eriko Nakamura on her birthday while she was doing a live radio broadcast alongside with Chihaya’s seiyuu and was reproduced perfectly on the anime. Episode 15 ia a must watch for all anime lovers, if there was a Sunday afternoon reality show like Namassuka Sunday?! (Are we live?! Sunday!) I’d watch it every week! See you next week and if you’re interested in travelling Japan make sure to tune in this Friday on Travel Fridays for some fantastic tips and hints on planning a wonderful (and cheaper) vacation in Japan!

This happened to Haruka in Episode 15

Which is a reproduction of this haha:

© 2016, Anson Wu. All rights reserved.

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