#shu uchida deserves to be one of those cuties frfr

[shiningstages]

okay i can't get it out of my mind - tini dump about kate cinderella girls, and my dreams for both international girls and the producer ( aka developing oc man )

the international / foreign girls in imas: cinderella girls (as far as i'm aware) are Frederica Miyamoto (french-japanese, voiced), Yao Fueifuei (hong kong, unvoiced), Clarice (vague european (personally french or dutch inspo), unvoiced), Anastasia (russian-japanese, voiced), Layla (Dubai / UAE, voiced), Kate (London / England, unvoiced), Helen (vague european / american (personally italian / mexican inspo), unvoiced), Natalia (Rio de Janeiro / Brazil, voiced), Eve Santaclaus (Greenland, voiced), Cathy Graham (american-japanese (born in new york but has lived in japan) unvoiced), and Mary Cochran (San Francisco / America, unvoiced). I don't include Shiki here because, although she studied in American, she's Japanese and isn't from anywhere over there. I also don't include the three Korean-exclusive deresute characters since they're discontinued after that server shut down (but also shoutout to them I love them too). However they are all side characters, just not a part of the project.

Kate is my favorite unvoiced girl, specifically because our names are similar, as well as slight backstory stuff (her love for her parents; "She's an exceedingly friendly and social person, often greeting everyone she passes by. She's also very touchy in comparison to other idols, enjoying giving others hugs or kisses to show her affection." from her wiki page / events, very me coded). So, in my International Girls imas cingirls idea, Kate is the true protagonist, with Natalia being the leader of the group and acts like a dual protagonist. While she's not the first of the international girls to be voiced (that order being Anya > Freddy > Natalia way later > Layla > Eve most recently as of literally Christmas; congrats to her cingirl first place), I wanna give Natalia bunches of love and more spotlight to get fleshed out as a character as well, as well as her and Kate becoming besties. The International Girls story would just be them forming into a unit, learning to appreciate their differences as well as come to feel like a cohesive unit despite them, and ultimately proving themselves as idols on the stage.

The Producer for that idea, in my mind, is Lotus Juice (LotusP, if you will), since he's proven himself in his own field, is from New Jersey and fluent in both english and japanese, and is also in a duo unit with TakeP aka Takeuchi Shunsuke aka the producer for cinderella girls, so it all just make sense in my mind. Story-wise - LotusP gets invited to the job after TakeP offers it to him as a friendly favor, since they both went to college together and / or went up in the ranks together before TakeP started raising idols / doing his cinderella girls "power of smile" project. Inspired by him, and not wanting to look a gifted horse in the mouth, the rougher and older man accepts, with TakeP being his occasional talking partner for advice. LotusP, in my mind, is suddenly named Austin in my mind (don't ask why idk). And he just kinda acts like Lotus Juice (chill older guy who seems kinda gruff, but is really mature), yet also has like a rough tsun thing going as he's not at all good with taking compliment, and gets dragged into scenarios and forced to play the straight man for gags. It's almost like he doesn't want to be a producer, but he needs a job and wants to stay in the music biz, but he ultimately takes his job (taking care of all the girls' and their schedules, as well as personally helping with some of their songs' production) very seriously.

Another thing I wanted to look into for a bit of drama is idol v school life, specifically as Kate is an international study abroad uni student that becomes an idol. In the end, like in her stories, she proves to her dad that she can be an idol and go to school, and at the very end she graduates and becomes an idol full time. Freddy is also in college for design; she can graduate too as a treat. It also makes me want to make Kate/Nat/Freddy triple protags, as it fills out the kind of NewGen-esque protags the original cingirls had, as well as I think they'd make good friends.

(Also, if anyone asks, Layla's backstory of running away from a planned marriage to Japan with the support of her mother but keeping the father in the dark...I literally just learned that TODAY, which was WILD, and yes in my plotline idk if I wanna explore that or just ignore that so! Hmm!!!!)

Also the eleven full group's unit song would be titled "Universal Parade", after the unit in the mobage game (which originally consists of CathyNatKateMaryFreYao), and their outfits would be similar to the unit "Your Friends" (NatKateMary) outfit set in the original mobage as well (without the fluffy bit or with the fluffy bit reincorporated somehow).

Also the actual outfits for NatLayla's unit "Sol Qamar" is very cool.