#and d4dj has idols

[pjsk-headcanons]

for the all together now au *(pjsk x bandori, enstars, and d4dj)* the non-sekai groups also have sekais but they don’t know about them.

.

[whitedayichika]

You know a set is good when people keep making card edits of it

[starswallowingsea]

alright i'll put this in the post and not just keep it in the tags but basically idol mobages have to have some sort of gimmick to differentiate them from the others on the market. enstars has 3d mvs for all of its songs that you can put different characters into with different outfits, d4dj uses a dj booth layout for its game along with allowing for medleys of its various songs to be played, hypmic does like a record scratch thing as well as theming itself around rap battles. project sekai's gimmick is very obviously vocaloids and it uses this a lot in its marketing and such.

however, i think project sekai is trying too hard to be multiple things at once rather than focusing on what makes it different from the other games. they have 3d videos for some of their songs like enstars does, but because the bar layout for the game grays out the background by default, you don't see the video very well while you're playing. ensemble stars, to get around this problem, makes the lanes transparent against the video background so you can see the video while you play (and some beat maps do play on visual cues as well as audio ones if you play with the 3d mv on). ensemble stars is also meant to be easy to pick up since it was made with beginners to the rhythm game genre in mind, but it does have its own special beat maps that break several rules in map design that keep it interesting.

d4dj is another straight lane game that doesn't have music videos, but they have a gimmick with how their lanes are set up. you have the normal tap notes like you see in project sekai, but instead of flick notes you have the faders and disks which change the sound of the song as you play, which adds to the experience while you're playing. project sekai just has simple tap, hold, and flick notes and while the notes can vary in width, it doesn't really impact the game itself so it seems like an odd choice to make with their game design?

and hypmic is probably the most different from project sekai but it still has its own gimmick that it plays into. rather than a small game cut of the song like some of these other games, hypmic splits the songs into parts so you can play the entire song over 2-5 parts. they also utilize a ring style layout but have two different types of hold notes, yellow and green. the yellow ones are simple holds and green ones rotate the entire map to where the note goes, adding depth to the game play.

i've tried to play project sekai a few times and it just doesn't know what it wants to do. it has 3d mvs like ensemble stars and it has a straight lane layout which. those two don't really mesh. anything you can find in project sekai you can find it better in another game. d4dj does the world interactions and also just has the best live 2d of any of these games (in my opinion. its very very smooth), you can do office or club decoration in both d4dj and ensemble stars, d4dj has a more creative and inspired straight lane layout and ensemble stars has better 3d mvs in general and knows how to utilize them with its layout, and while hypmic doesn't really have any of these things, it does still manage to hold its own with its rap battle gimmick and the drama tracks and manga for the story. project sekai leans very very heavily on that vocaloid theming and doesn't really put any effort into actually making the game like. enjoyable or unique.

having thoughts about what makes an interesting idol rhythm game

[summeridols]

How to make icons like these:

Flags: Idol system, Bubblegender, Musicstar

Warning: This tutorial relies on the idea that you have some understanding of how to use photoediting software like photoshop, however if something that doesn't make sense then feel free to ask and I will explain it as best as I can.

All the icons we made for this can be found here! Thank you for reading, please consider reblogging this post and the icons because this took forever to write up and the icons take a LONG time to make.

In this tutorial I will make DID/OSDD Aoi Miyake icons.

Anyway let's get into it!

Step one, choose what you're going to make (and gathering resources)

This may seem obvious, but going in with a plan makes these so much easier.

In this stage we consider three things:

The flag and/or colors we want to use in the icon, this is important as it can affect the images used or even the character depending on how similar their colors are

Character and the general colors associated with them, this is important as it can makes the filtering stage easier (or harder) and can make an icon look 'wrong' or 'right' sadly

The border of the icon and how that will affect the icon itself, sometimes they're easy to work with, others not so much. Our method differs from a lot of other peoples so we take more time with them than most others

In this case I will be making DID icons of Aoi Miyake from D4DJ, however due to how most of her cards have a blue tint I will be using the plural peafowl flag by m0dem0n than the original DID flag- This is to save time and make th icons look more harmonious.

We will also be using this mask by i'mjustchillinghere as the icon base

Step two, coloring the middle image (optional step)

This is a lot of guess work and everyone has a different process for this. Essentially we're going to make a PSD that makes the image look better with the colors of the flag.

As shown above we have the flag and the character image, but they don't match completely. The rose and other blue accents are too saturated compared to the flag and the black is too black and the wrong blue hue, the eye could also be a bit greener and saturated imo.

What I like to do is open the image with the flag behind or infront, so I can see the colors I'm working with.

Then I open the hue editor layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue and Saturation). It's very important to clip the hue layer to the image so it doesn't start messing with the colors of the flag (we've had this happen many times before it's very awkward trying to match a color that keeps changing) to clip right click 'Clipping Mask'.

Your screen should then look like this:

Okay so if you need to adjust the screen to get the icon in the center so you can see everything do this now.

Next where the box with the hue options says master, click it.

These are all the color options you can change, in this we'll mostly be using, yellow, green and blue. For other projects blue and cyan sometimes get 'mixed up' and can control both shades so be careful with that.

Other color settings we personally use are: Vibrance and Selective Color (both are located under the Layer option), but in this case I'm happy to just use Hue and Vibrance.

This is what the icons look like:

No color editing | Just Hue and Saturation | Hue and Saturation + Vibrance

Now your middle icon is ready turn off the background layer and save the image as a transparent png!

Step three, preparing the mask for use

So the mask is the base of your icon, however if you clip all aspects of your icon to the mask it looks like this and you can't see the flag.

So what you need to do is layer the mask. This will vary in difficulty, it can depend on how far apart the pieces of the mask are and how they interlink. You could erase the border parts but that takes a lot of time.

This icon is simple because to me there's three clear sections, the middle part, the border and the rose. What you need to do is copy the layer three times and get the wand- I would reccomend having the wand strengh over 100 or else black lines may remain, but this will depend on how close the black parts are.

Hide the top two layers and work from the bottom up. Select all the areas you want to delete, in this case I can only delete the rose (the border is too close to the middle part and would delete that as well) and then hit delete.

In this case, I will just erase the border by hand, and then BOOM, you have a base!

Hide this layer and move to the next, for this one I'm removing the middle and the rose.

For the next layer you can select what's in the layer below and delete it without it impacting the border, which makes the icon process easier, however in this case I'm going to give out the border layers for you here!

Step four, using the mask

NOW you can clip the flag to the layers! We always clip it to the base and border layer.

As for the rose... We make a seperate layer and clip it to those rose. Then (using the eye dropper tool) pick colors from the flag to use to color it in! As shown:

Next step is to add the image you colored!

Go to File > Open and Place and then choose the PNG from your gallery and place it in the icon. Once it's there fiddle around with it until you get the image you want and then BOOM!

Now you have a singlar icon!

Feel free to repeat this as many times as you want and make as many icons as you want.

-

All the icons we made for this can be found here! Thank you for reading, once again please consider reblogging this post and the icons because this took forever to write up and the icons take a LONG time to make.

[rimanne]

well this recent stuff messed me up a bit, even if i'm not a akatsukiP. i normally wouldn't do this kind of thing but enstars is a really beloved series to me and i wanted to share my experience with it and vent a little

so yeah corny stuff after read more

I've always loved rhythm games, since my childhood playing rhythm heaven. In fact, it's the only type of game, besides visual novels, i can say i'm sort of good at lol

And some years ago i used to play love live and utapri-shining live a lot. If i remember correctly both of them had gacha elements and story modes but i didn't really care about it, because my english was really bad at the time AND all i cared about was to play silly anime songs on my phone.

I wasn't really sad after both of these games ended their services. I was left bittersweet, yes, but nothing that impacted me that much. So i was left wondering if there were other games similar to those i've played.

I tried bandori, project sekai, d4dj, but none of them really stuck with me, maybe because i'm a thumb player and the layout was really hard for me to adapt to. And then, almost 4 years ago, i saw enstars in pre-registration. It apparently had a similar layout to what i was used to, so i figured "i might like this! i'm gonna give it a try!"

And it didn't take me long to fall head over heels for this series. I love absurdism, so the crazy lore behind the silly idol game really pulled me in. And i did get used to the gameplay style, i felt nostalgic of the games i used to play before and i felt like i struck gold for finding enstars.

I can't exactly point out what makes enstars special to me, compared to the other games i've played, i never felt such a deep connection to a game before.

Regarding the story, as i said before, it really left me interested to learn more about the world and the characters. The way the plot point was over the top and insane, along with the characters who are crazy too, it was as if it was built in for me to obsess over lol

But of course, the problem was always there. Honestly the way aira treated hiiro left me so uncomfortable at times, especially within the story, where it makes it seen hiiro as a stupid kid who knows nothing about anything.

Adonis' case is really complicated for me, because, as a black woman who grew up watching cartoons and anime with little to no black characters, i just got used to, in lack of better words, "be grateful for what i have".

And adonis being the only foreigner in a cast of yamato japanese people made me sympathize with him. "Oh, so he is viewed as a violent foreigner who's obsessed with meat, but he is just a softie? Well, i'll take what i can get".

And i genuinely thought that "maybe they're making a criticism on racist views or something". But really, adonis has existed for 10 years, i've been a fan for almost 4, and to this day we don't know what country he is from.

Not to mention what they've been doing with their neurodivergent characters lately! Sora lost his synesthesia somehow, and apparently shu got "cured"?? Mademoiselle doesn't appear anymore??

This new stuff with ibuki was my last straw, because it felt like happyele spent years punching us, then suddenly they switch to hitting us with bazookas with their blatant disrespect for their characters, their fans, everything!!!

I really can't bring myself to enjoy playing it anymore, but i'll still be in the fandom, i'll still have so much care for the characters, i'll still listen to the songs i already like, because they're mine now. And happyele can try to pry them away from my cold dead hands!!!

Anyway

[project-sekai-facts]

As a person who hasn’t played any other rhythm game, why do you think prsk is so successful in a category where there are so many other games to choose from? I guess this would also relate to why you quit the other games you were playing?

hatsune miku.

also i think the story is project sekai is very engaging and generally much better than rhythm games in terms of writing quality and storytelling. i can't comment on bandori because i never got into the story, but compared to D4DJ, proseka is much more consistently good and deep. that's not to say there's anything wrong with D4DJ's more lighthearted overall tone aside from when it gets into questionable shit but sometimes it feels like there's no stakes even when the story tries to say that there are, and generally it's written more like a comedy slice of life than prsk's very realistic and heavier slice-of-life style.

the same can be said for SIF of which i read 6 chapters 3 years ago before skipping literally everything else. the stories were pretty simple again and obviously some people are gonna prefer that over prsk's sometimes more heavy-hitting tone but from a critical pov project sekai does have the better writing.

both the other franchises i mentioned do have really good writing at times. while love live is ultimately slice-of-life with comedy it does have some exceptional character writing, as does D4DJ. Some of the D4DJ stories released in the last year are also amazingly well-written and have dealt with much heavier topics and handled them really well. but that's enough of me gushing about those.

i think its interesting that while this game has always been pretty popular as a idol mobage outside asia, EN suddenly exploded last may-june and i'm not entirely sure why (i guess summer break in america and maybe some adverts and tiktok?). like i used to be able to T20K-30K by barely playing the events and suddenly i was getting T100Ks when I didn't change how i played at all.

Also like. not the best way to judge but when i first checked this fandom's ao3 page in february last year it had about 300 fics and it very suddenly started rapidly going into the 1000s starting that May-ish. like, very rapidly. as of posting this we're at 15516 (only 6k less than enstars which is a much older game) and two ships made it into AO3s top 100 this year so that's a very significant boom in popularity just to back up my bad tiering strats.

i also think tiktok definitely played a part in the game's EN popularity. i don't go there but the tiktok fanbase is huge, right? and then it runs on algorithm shit so people get that stuff on their FYP and download the game. word of mouth but digital style. also crossover with genshin somehow that i think has roots on that app.

the thing is that none of those directly have to do with why people would play proseka over the others and i think that's it. prsk has become an outright popular game outside of the idol-rhythm label. loads of people at my college know what hatsune miku: colorful stage is but barely any of them know enstars or bandori which are the other big names.

i think in someways it's less project sekai being the "preferred" game and more project sekai being the "known" game.

what the fuck did i just write i'm so sorry

[dailyfigures]

processed requests ☆

an alphabetical list of the requests i've received and added to the queue. this saves me the time of having to answer every request one by one, and allows you to see what has already been requested!

has been posted ;

☆ arknights ; lappland

☆ banana fish

☆ b project

☆ brand new animal

☆ my hero academia ; fatgum

☆ my little pony bishoujo line

☆ nakano miku fallen angel figure

☆ nichijou ; minakami mai

☆ precure

☆ princess tutu

☆ project sekai

☆ stone ocean ; jolyne

☆ tekken

☆ toilet bound hanako kun

☆ tokyo mew mew

is in the queue ;

☆ .hack

☆ 22/7

☆ 86 -eightysix-

☆ a3!

☆ akira

☆ amnesia

☆ a place further than the universe

☆ arknights ; muelsyse

☆ astra lost in space

☆ atelier series

☆ attack on titan ; levi

☆ azumanga daioh

☆ bandori

☆ belle

☆ black butler

☆ black rock shooter

☆ bloodborne

☆ blue exorcist

☆ blue reflection

☆ call of the night

☆ canaan

☆ card captor sakura

☆ case closed

☆ castlevania

☆ chainsaw man ; denji

☆ di gi charat

☆ dorohedoro

☆ dragon ball ; launch

☆ dragon quest

☆ dragon themed figures

☆ durarara!!

☆ enstars

☆ eureka 7

☆ evangelion ; asuka

☆ fairy tail

☆ final fantasy

☆ fire emblem

☆ frieren: beyond journey's end

☆ genshin impact

☆ girls last tour

☆ guilty crown

☆ heaven burns red

☆ hello kitty to issho!

☆ helltaker

☆ high card

☆ hololive

☆ how heavy are the dumbbells you lift?

☆ humanity has declined

☆ hypnosis mic

☆ idol figures

☆ idolish7

☆ the idolm@ster

☆ ike musume

☆ in/spectre

☆ inuyasha

☆ is the order a rabbit?

☆ izetta the last witch

☆ kageki shoujo

☆ katamari damacy

☆ kill la kill

☆ kingdom hearts

☆ kirby

☆ k-on!

☆ konosuba

☆ kyoto animation

☆ last exile

☆ league of legends

☆ legend of heroes

☆ love live

☆ lucky star

☆ lupin iii

☆ lycoris recoil

☆ madoka magica

☆ megaman x

☆ mo dao zu shi

☆ my hero academia ; deku & fatgum

☆ nier automata

☆ no.6

☆ original characters

☆ oshi no ko

☆ ouran high school host club

☆ pokemon

☆ psycho pass

☆ slayers

☆ sonic the hedgehog

☆ squid girl

☆ tokyo ghoul

☆ sss gridman

☆ summer wars

☆ terror in resonance

☆ the world god only knows

☆ touhou project

☆ ultraman

☆ undertale

☆ vocaloid

☆ yuezheng ling

has no figures to post (keeping my eye out for future releases) ;

☆ bludgeoning angel dokuro chan

☆ d4dj

☆ ergo proxy

☆ kaiba (2008)

☆ kaiji

☆ shy

☆ the arcana

☆ the disastrous life of saiki k

☆ vocaloid ; fukase

☆ yona of the dawn

☆ ys viii

[ashmuka]

i so wish d4dj was more popular because it genuinely has one of the most creative and enjoyable playstyles of any idol rhythm game, like the chart being a dj setup is so cute and on theme with the game

[lolly-lollyrot]

I figure I should make an introduction post since I actually never made one on here before…

ABOUT ME!

haaaiiii!!! u can call me gummi or squishy! I’m a lesbian and currently questioning my gender but it’s something feminine i know

My pronouns are she/her and fae/faer, but honestly I would be ok with any feminine pronouns!

this account is mainly going to be art related things and reblogs of cooler art that u should totally check out!

I have adhd, and possibly autism as well, so my interests most likely won’t stay the same for TOO long.

I’m a yumejoshi! specifically with Hiyoko Saionji from Danganronpa! fixated on her since 2019🫀🫀

my sona is named Gummi as well, so when I talk abt her it might sound like I’m talking in third person lawlz ^_^’

I like any sort of media(specifically anime)that has mainly female characters or a completely female cast!

some of my interests: (this’ll be updated when they change)

Gyaru fashion + subculture in general

My little pony, Friendship is Magic

Love Live! School Idol Project!

Bang Dream! Girls Band Party!

D4DJ

Paradise Kiss

Nana

Touhou Project

Danganronpa

Dragonball

Mario’s Madness

Pressure

Doors

Sonic

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

Chainsaw Man

Mob Psycho 100

…there’s probably more, but that’s all I can remember rn.

please PLEASE dni if ur a proshipper, fetish blog, if u voted for that tan deaf orange, or any other stinky thing

this song was also the inspo for my username! please go check out jack off jill their music is so good💔

thx for checking out my blog!!!! BAI BAI!!! LUV UUUUU🫀

[caramelmochacrow]

hiiii im back at it again w my d4dj headcanons, yeahhh. you know the drill. :)

(cut cause dude this is genuinely long)

yuka has a low immune system, but high stamina. vise versa for esora. yuka holds someone's hand that's sick and she gets the illness for a whole week and she cannot leave her bed. esora's fine tho bc she had to hold a few animals and stuff (also bc her parents didnt want her to be sickly and have a low immune system as a kid)

noa is terrible when it comes to jokes that involve an incorrect fact. especially when it comes to her interests. someone will say something like: "you sing so bad, crows look like song birds" or something and noa's like "but crows are song birds. theyre in the passerifo--" and then the person's like "i was joking noa jeez" especially when she was a kid.

people know this buuuut idc im saying it again. tsubaki is cousins w toya from prosekai. they were rlly tight when they were younger but then tsubaki's father had to move them away for his job. toya got sad abt it bc his cousin was the only person he had before tsukasa and saki appeared in his life. yay. he reconnected w her after he met vbs and they visit each other regularly now :) (usually tsubaki tho bc of toya's situation from what i understand but yea)

saki is hard of hearing bc of her synesthesia. (idk how her synesthesia works and sometimes the series likes making shit up so.... myeah) her brain fills in words sometimes from context clues and she usually guesses right. sometimes she doesn't, of course. she struggles w being almost mute at first when it came to speaking because of it.

towa's younger brother plays baseball and treats baseball players similar to how his sister treats idols. he's a little weirded out by noa but he's ok w her now. he's alright w ibuki, but wishes she wasnt so harsh on his sister and he thinks saki's kinda cool bc wow!! dj!

abyssmare speak full english when theyre by themselves, which unnerves some of the students at yoba at first, but now theyre fine w it.

marika's older sister was a clean freak, that's why marika struggles w cleaning. rip.

also marika had a six-month relationship w rei's older sister till they broke up because of Reasons (if you read her relations event w towa you know) :3 rika's the only one in m4 that knows this relationship yea

aoi started growing out her hair after the my prince event to at least be worn w a small ponytail :3 everyone in rondo loves it, nagisa likes pulling on it sometimes. tsubaki thinks it's super cute (she doesnt tell aoi) and hiiro likes giving aoi little ribbons so she can tie it up w it.

haruna's related to riko from love live. in what way? dont know. you decide~

ibuki is aro (questioning if she's ace but not sure) and saki is ace, but simply doesnt think of ibuki in that way. aroace solidarity i suppose.

[pjsk-headcanons]

the Popular Idol Game in the West Quartet (pjsk, bndr, d4dj, enst) all exist in the same universe!! dont ask me how that works

they listen to each other's music (minori is def a pasupale fan, peaky peaky thinks it's funny leoni has a song of their name, etc) and i like to think have bumped into eachother once or twice

-🚆

(ps: is this an au? tag it as "all together now; one more time! au" if you want)

.

[l0ligutz]

HEWWO!!

AME - he/him, 16, i’m an irl trap! i speak english fluently, and japanese and french non fluently. you can misgender me but it’ll only make me horny, so be careful cuz i’m a minor!

no dni, no blocklist. you will not trigger me >_<

i’m a professional menhera girlfriend and i love talking about:

vtubers & hololive production: fauna enthusiast, stars endorser, and god’s greatest elira pendora hater. /vt/ anon and yacht sinker. i love watching riku tazumi burn!

my hololive oshis are inugami korone, ceres fauna, fuwamoco and gavis bettel ♪ hololive love! past&present dragoon!! i keep up with most agencies & indies (>_<)

vocaloid: i’m a huge nerd for the cultural shift of the 2000s and the responsibility of hatsune miku in internet culture! ask me about this, i have a powerpoint. i love vocaloid history in general and i love doing deep dives into specific artists and songs. i’ve been listening to vocaloid since i was young and it holds a lot of personal meaning to me. not a fan of pj sekai in the slightest, but i'm not adverse to sekai-related yapping!

anime figures: i’m a huge collector and i love moe aesthetics! i have thousands of dollars of figures, please talk to me about them :3 there’s no need to own figures to enjoy them!!

for anime in general, i like anything with cute girls! talk to me about magical girls! puella magi ☆ madoka magica has a special place in my heart, but i love anything in the genre, gushing over magical girls to card captor sakura.

menhera, jirai, gyaru, jojifuku, and all other j-fashion subcultures, esp mental heath based subculs.

i am a proshipper, online and irl! massive lolicon and shotacon + problematica enjoyer

gacha and idol games! blue archive, D4DJ, bang dream! girls band party!, genshin impact, zenless zone zero, etc

not an extensive list, if i think of anything else ill add it here! >w<

[teutaranaway]

i was having thoughts about idol rhythm games bc ive played A LOT in my life and i have some thoughts like game-wise . ok .

if you have songs that has to be purchased through in game currency and theres no other way to play them without purchasing outside of multilive IF they get selected, literally and actually die

if your game has different outfits but they have to be crafted i hate you

all idol games should have a B-side section (like love live and ichu did) for extra ingame currency and materials (enstars just has boosted songs)

shuffle units are great and should be done more

there should be an all perfect challenge mode (again like ichu did) that ends your life once you get a great or ok bc i like those

if your beatmap's difficulty is based on how many fucked up flick notes you can fit into a song even if it doesnt need flick songs i need you to die immediately (enstars.)

append (proseka) just doesnt look fun and to make a special beatmap fun u need to introduce new mechanics instead of just adding more flick notes. and needing more fingers.

exp tickets are fun and all but in ye old idol games tickets u could sacrifice ur cards to level up your other cards so u should still be able to feed ur children with your other children and so proseka should get onto that

that thing d4dj has that like stops the map while ur holding it except for the pink notes? i love that i want that more in other games

i have more but i have a headache . wat do u think

[girlprince-tournament]

Side B - Match 2

propaganda under cut

Aoi Miyake:

Arashi Narukami:

"She is an idol and is part of the unit called 'Knights'. Their stage personas involves them acting as knights for their princesses (fans). She is canonically transfem! Off stage, she acts as a 'nee-san' or older sister figure for her juniors and friends."

"She's canonically transfem + an idol in the unit called knights, who are, as the name suggest, based on...knights. Both the knightly ones and the chess ones. Knights also call their fans "princess" so it stands. Idk how to propaganda so can I just tell more about her. She was a child model (and still is a model? Though I think she focuses more on her idol career) and has like 102603539 crushes all very bad choices /hj but like at one point there was a friend of hers who confessed to her and called her "the most beautiful person in the world" AND I THINK also composed a song for her? Except that person committed suicide later on... Oh also arashi has like that twisted obsession with love because she was greatly neglected emotionally by her parents during her childhood so like she ended up clinging a LOT to the first ever person who showed her genuine care in her childhood (AND STILL CLINGE TO THAT PERSON). She's also like cute and pretty stuff and like,,is pretty girly yeah? She's literally in a group of friend called "Pretty 5" and also queen of gossip. She's also one of the favorites of the main writer in the game like once another writer badly wrote a knights event story (AND AS A KNIGHTS FAN. IT WAS /BAD/) SUPERVISED BY THE MAIN WRITER and somehooow arashi wasn't appearing much in that story...as if the main writer didn't want her to get the bad writing...there was also a time where she would jumpscare in every scout story ever somehow even though it was COMPLETELY unrelated to her so. Yeah. Also her main nickname is naru idk why I didn't say that earlier and she has a cat named nyanko. SORRY FOR THE VERY MESSY RAMBLING I LOVE MY WIFE"

[animefeminist]

Remixing Expectations: Queer representation and gender euphoria in D4DJ Groovy Mix

It seems like every season there’s a new mixed media project promoting a tie-in idol/music group with an app and an anime to jump start or adapt the story. As a self-described resident of what the masses call Idol Hell, I’ve sampled and enjoyed a couple of them. Often, however, these games have a tendency to fall into the same established, familiar patterns in terms of the story points, the character arcs, and how they speak vaguely about whatever the gimmick is. There is one recent series, however, that manages to go against this sparkly mobile game grain.

While it started out as another franchise building off of the foundation that Bushiroad’s BanG Dream built, D4DJ has managed to craft its own identity by pushing the boundaries of what is expected from a mixed media music franchise—particularly in how it integrates canonical queerness and themes of gender identity within the text, D4DJ manages to go places that very few franchises in its peer group manage to do. This makes it stand out as one of the most inclusive, earnest, and affirming music franchises that I’ve experienced.

D4DJ is a mixed media project started by Bushiroad that follows the adventures of various DJ units. The series was launched with an anime, D4DJ First Mix, in 2020, and as is commonplace across mixed-media properties of this type, the voice actresses also serve as pseudo-idols who represent their DJ units IRL.

While it has a large cast, the franchise’s story centers around Aimoto Rinku, a high schooler who returns to Japan after living abroad and gets inspired to start a unit of her own, dragging friends she meets along the way into her dream. While the anime is charming in its own right, what I want to focus on within this piece is the mobile game D4DJ Groovy Mix and how it pushes the envelope and raises the bar for what to expect from these franchises.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[pavlikbuonarroti]

smth abt idol gacha polyshipping never gels w me i think because they're Teens but the power of sloppy college girls has immediately overpowered me downloading d4dj. like if i said that merm4id all got shitfaced after a gig and fucked nasty that's just a fact of nature.