The Idolm@ster Movie: GET HYPE!!!

GeN's body is not L@DY for this announcement. If you had told me that the Idolm@ster franchise would get a movie, I would be creaming in my shorts by now. I had to literally rubbed my eyes in disbelief when I read the article in Anime News Network, confirming an Idolm@ster Movie. I didn't mention this before but, my main reason of getting back to watching anime is because I've watched The Idolm@ster anime series. It was then I believed that anime today can deliver story, music, characters and emotion, all in one package. To me, the Idolm@ster is my current favorite anime of all time. It sounds like that I'm putting it on a pedestal but I think if an anime is worth watching every single episode over and over again,  then it's a definitely on my top anime list.

 Promotional Art for The Idolm@ster Movie

The Idolm@ster is a popular game franchise from Namco Bandai. This multi-platform series is a idol-raising sim where you play in a role of a producer, helping 13 different idols to become Top Idol. The games spans from the original arcade to the XBOX 360, then later to the PSP, Nintendo DS and PS3. It also branched out into a spin off anime, Idolmaster: Xenoglossia, an OVA bundled with The Idolm@ster: Live for you, had it songs playable in the Taiko no Tatsujin franchise and have a slot machine version called The Idolm@ster: Live in Slot. It was the 2011 anime series, self titled The Idolm@ster, helped sky rocketed the popularity of the franchise as it gave a faithful adaptation of the games and at the same time, shown an interesting depth of drama which surprises most anime lovers. The anime had great animation, interesting characters and back stories for each of them, plenty of music from the various games and have a not annoying male protagonist.

The main cast of The Idolm@ster anime. The only anime that I like every character.

About the movie itself, little is known about it except for the fact that A-1 Pictures are handling it and hopefully the content itself is original and hopefully not a episode dump. I don't fancy the idea of cramming anime episodes into a feature length movie, therefore, I want more stories to tell from the idols of 765Pro. I also think it's unavoidable that other idols from other games can appear into movie as well. To think maybe that the idols from The Idolm@ster: Dearly Stars could appear in the movie and also the 100+ idols from The Idolm@ster: Cinderella Girls. What I'm excited for both original and new characters is more expressions of what they think of each other, whether there is gonna be more rivalries, more enemies or possible pairings for us to enjoy. Since this is a new product from the franchise, it is customary for it to have a new, or set of new songs to enjoy, just like it did with The Idolm@ster Shiny Festa. As for the movie's plot, I'm trying to not come up any possible story that they could cover and I can't ignore the plot reveal thats gonna happen later this year. I would like to keep everything to me as a surprise as much as possible and try to not listen to spoilers since plot turns in the anime itself was well worth discovering which then gives me authentic feels of emotions. 

Now for the hype of myself getting into the Idolm@ster mood again here are my top idols, from lowest to highest:

 

12th place: Hibiki Ganaha

 

  11th place: Yayoi Takaysuki

 

10th place: Yukiho Hagiwara 

 

 9th place: Chihaya Kisaragi

 

 8th place: Azusa Miura

 

 7th place: Ritsuko Akizuki

 

 6th place: Ami Futami and Mami Futami

 

 5th place: Miki Hoshii

 

 4th place: Haruka Amami

 3rd place: Makoto Kikuchi

 

 2nd place: Takane Shijou

 1st place: Iori Minase

 And to finish off, here are my top Idolm@ster songs:

Shiny Smile
READY!!

Do-Dai
Honey Heartbeat
MEGARE!
Itsumademo
GO MY WAY!
Smoky Thrill
Nanairo Button
Little Match Girl
Relations
OVERMASTER
Kirarimekirari
Yakusoku
Change!