Woah Cool Idolmaster Namco Pro x Kuroi Pro 3D Concert Event Announced For July 24-25 2027
Some random talk on why I've always been intrigued by Idolmaster.
Asalam aleikoum how's it going? This is a blog post, not an article I plan to add to my portfolio, so don't expect this to be truly informative or organized. If you wish to go to an event in Japan and plan to travel to Japan at that moment you must be able to gather all the info you need by yourself.
The staff made a typo and wrote "Produciton" instead of "Production". These kind of small mistakes can happen. I hope hardcore fans won't give them flak about it.
Even an air player of the idolchristm@s series such as myself can tell this announcement is really cool because this concert is going to feature original Jupiter from the first time they showed up and were part of Kuroi Pro right? I don't go to concerts anymore, so I wouldn't pull up for this one even if I was rich and could travel to Japan whenever, but like, just the concept itself is hype.
Also each subtitle for the three concerts (one concert on the first day, two concerts on the second day) reflect the featured characters. The first day of the event is titled TO:STARLIT OF PROMISE because it'll have Hoshii Miki, Shijou Takane, Ganaha Hibiki, and Okuzora Kohaku as the representatives of Namco Pro, and Reon, Shika and Aya as the representatives of Kuroi Pro.
They all appeared in Idolmaster Starlit Season, the latest console game. With Reon Shika Aya forming the idol unit Diamant appearing in the game at Kuroi Pro.
Reon and Shika already existed in past games, but Aya was made specifically for Starlit Season alongside with Kohaku, and they're each other's rival. Kohaku is also the game's poster girl.
And yeah second day second concert will feature Jupiter but from the Idolmaster 2 days, when they were part of Kuroi Pro and were the rival bad dudes; That's why Touma is so overwhelming and arrogant in the trailer.
This is like a very animeboomer-oriented Idolmaster event and I'm all for it. This is also in continuation with the previous 3D concert, ReFlame, that featured Miki Takane Hibiki but in Kuroi Pro era forms. Because just like Jupiter, in the first game they appeared in, Idolmaster SP, they used to form an unit called Project Fairy and were enemy idols from Kuroi Pro. ( I still haven't finished Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy, only ever played through the first chapter of Volume 1 in 2021. Need to get back to it maybe the story ends up being really cool. The characters are cute and interesting so far, especially the commander voiced by Ueda Kana. Hopefully she doesn't die. Sucks its's a digital-only, PS4-only game. Speaking of which I'm still waiting for a Shin Sakura Taisen switch 2 PC enhanced port with full voice acting and a Shin Sakura Taisen 2.)
I'm planning to write an intricate article about this subject one day insha Allah for ko-fi subs, but to put it simply, I really don't like series that only feature one gender and acts as if male/female characters don't exist, in order to avoid displeasing "purity otaku". I can't talk about why I hate it in public, because it's a mix of very personal reasons, personal taste, and has to do with how I've always interacted and understood Japanese pop culture.
But yeah the fact that Idolmaster didn't pander to purity otaku is one reason why I've always been interested in the games. I was really intrigued the first time I heard that there was a female idol management game where the rivals were a male idol group called Jupiter.
(Though I admit I would often clown the name Jupiter back then because it's just funny. And I'm also slightly rewriting history here, because back then in the mid 2000s, I didn't even know about purity otaku, and works primarily targeting purity otaku weren't as developed as now anyway).
And in the 2010s, my impression is the Idolmaster franchise kinda stepped out from that, with clearer distinctions between male and female characters and less interactions. (There is also how the SideM games were terribly mismanaged and also the first ones to be cut at the slightest difficulties, showing what imo is misogyny from Bandai Namco higher-ups. The same kind of misogyny displayed by a lot of companies regarding joseimuke).
But these last few years since the 20th anniversary, it feels like ixm@s going more into doing mixed gender things again. Most notably there's the Idolmaster Tours arcade game that lets you freely use both female and male characters. Wish I lived in Japan and could try it out.
One reason why I like Pretty Rhythm is how it has a lot of focus on male characters despite being a girls thing. And King of Prism still regularly shows the female characters of Rainbow Live and what they're doing, with a few lines and scenes every now and then, even if they're not the focus.
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Man it'd be so cool if Gakumas had male characters. I still haven't restarted my let's play translation impressions of the game. Basically I wanna cover the pre release live streams that I never summarized, and then write impression articles on each of the character's Storylines, with an article for each Step.
Eventually I wanna do the same thing for the first Idolmaster games too.
I hope one day I'll be able to get paid to write a big article, or even a column series, gotta dream big, on Idolmaster to explain how it was a big influence on pop culture. For better or worse the current game industry in Asia wouldn't exist in its current form if not for Idolmaster.
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