Okay, so the title of this one’s a bit of a misnomer since this week’s column isn’t exactly about idol wars in the way something like THE IDOLM@STER‘s idol agency spats or AKB0048‘s literal wars are. In fact, it might be more accurate to say this is more about the war inside me. The war of loving idols. What it’s like to live with love. To love…and live…
Heheh.
Bonus Content:
I’ve been watching more SDF Macross—and it fits in just as well this week as bonus content as it did last week. Verdict so far (1/3 of the way through): it’s very good and I’m enjoying it a whole lot. It’s really interesting to watch Kawamori’s first show having seen only his most recent stuff because you can really see the seeds of what’s to come in Aquarion EVOL and AKB0048 clearly in Macross. In addition, being in the midst of watch Turn A Gundam has also provided an interesting secondary perspective on Macross. I’m well aware that Macross showed up only a few years after the original Gundam, but it’s really interesting to see what feel like some very Gundam-like stuff in Macross. The two franchises, at least from my limited experience of both, don’t seem to be oppositional as I had been lead to believe by…whatever it was that lead me to (erroneously) think that.
By the way, SDF Macross looks great, too!
Mage in a Barrel 
I find it interesting that you had cross-show comparison problems. Maybe, if you take them out of context, they make reduced sense?
I played around with the idol sorter, and this is what I got:
Nanako (Locodol)
Rin (Cinderella Girls)
Maki (Love Live)
Hibiki (Idolm@ster)
Anastasia (Cinderella Girls)
I’m not sure how much this actually represents my taste. Ranking was difficult mostly because I’ve forgotten who is who if I’ve seen the show too long ago (which explains the prominence of Cinderella Girls – as it’s the most recent, and the absence of AKB0048, as it’s one of the earlier ones). Generally, I felt tossed into a sea of indistinguishability – with a few islands of recognition (doesn’t help that some of the graphics they used didn’t always come from the anime and I rarely remember the names for long).
Also, if going through the idolsorter reminded me of one thing, it’s that I’m just not an idol fan.
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I also found it interesting! Thus, the column haha.
Hm, and yeah, that is interesting for you. I suppose if you’re not really an idol fan, it makes more sense that the names and faces would kind of just wash by you without really sticking all that much. I’m sure there are batches of characters whose names you’ll never forget; they just might not be idols.
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“Also, if going through the idolsorter reminded me of one thing, it’s that I’m just not an idol fan.”
Yeah, same here, either that or I just haven’t watched/read that many shows that were actually in the sorter. I haven’t seen AKB or Imas at all, for instance.
Anyway, these were my results:
Honoka (Love Live)
Utau Hoshina (Shugo Chara)
Naka (KanColle)
Tsubasa Kira (Love Live)
Ranka Lee (Macross Frontier)
Macross Frontier was the hardest, as it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that Ranka and Sheryl Nome were both a bit blurry to me – I could be remembering them completely backwards. Otherwise it’s fine, though there were a few characters who would’ve been strong contenders for the five if their shows had actually been on the list (Rise Kujikawa from Persona 4, Ringo Seto from Angelic Layer, and Ai from Kaitou Joker).
To bless’ larger point about trying to rank characters from different series against each other, though, unless we’re talking about characters of a similar archetype who perform a similar role in their respective series, that’s always something I’ve had a lot of trouble with. That’s precisely why I have my MAL favorite characters list in alphabetical order, because I don’t think I could ever come up with a precise ranking order that I wouldn’t feel like changing again every 2 or 3 days.
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Honoka number one? YES.
I’ve heard some great things about Frontier; I’m excited to eventually get to it when the time comes.
And yes, you understand! The interesting thing about the idols, though, is that I feel like they all do play, within the meta-text, similar archetypes (basically, that of the idol) while also having different takes on what that archetype looks like. Hoping to explore this even more next week.
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You should read this blog post. It talks about the 12 archetypal characters of the hero journey (the fool, the orphan, the caregiver, etc.) and how each fits with one of the girls from Idolmaster. I haven’t even seen the show and I still found it interesting, so you’d probably get even more out of it.
https://pretensewithglasses.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/the-idols-journey-the-12-heros-journey-archetypes-and-the-idolmster-12/
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Wow, this was great! Thanks a bunch for sharing it; the author’s part on Miki (The Fool) in particular was awesome.
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Nice find… I liked the author’s take on Makato.
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I ran the Idol Sorter a number of times and an interesting pattern emerged. Slots 3, 4, and 5 were routinely filled with a rotating roster from μ’s, 765 Pro, and WUG… But, though they swapped positions several times, Shimada Mayu (WUG) and Kisaragi Chihaya (iM@S) consistently took the top slots.
While I agree with your overarching point about comparing characters from different franchises head-to-head, these two have a lot in common. They both have tragic backstories, both end up battered and bruised as they face their pasts and their demons, and both emerge the stronger for it. (Love Live lacks flavor in this respect because it mostly takes it’s tone from Honoka’s irrepressible take-no-prisoners optimistic approach to life.)
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Hmhm, Mayu and Chihaya both do seem like characters you’d like. 🙂 And yeah, I like the comparison you draw between them; they’re quite similar in a way I feel like few other pairs of idols would be…
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I like interesting stories, what can I say? (And Chihaya’s a capella performance is one of my favorite moments in idol anime.)
But the pair do play into the similar archetypes thing you mentioned above. Same broad story, considerably different in details.
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From what I understand, Kawamori hooked up with Hiroshi Onogi (screenwriter) and Haruhiko Mikimoto (chara designer) in their uni’s Gundam Fan Club . SDF-M itself started out as their mish-mash parody/homage to Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato (Lynn Minmay is pretty much an archetypal Princess Peace except, you know, an idol) before at some point they turned to a more serious direction.
The creation process was very messy, and the final part/arc of the series clearly wasn’t meant to be there in the planning phase, but they all come together fine by the end. I love how you can see the gradual blossoming from a cheese-tastic parody into a multi-faceted show with a clear sense of identity and purpose (without fully abandoning its endearing silliness), eventually carving its own legend in the process~
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Man, if that’s true, what a quick turnaround! SDF Macross only came out a few years after the original Gundam. They must have really got out of uni and then headed straight into anime.
And yeah, we go from space tuna to talking about love and culture and war all at the same time. Macross is wild.
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Where is Grumpy? Your taste in idols is shit, just like your taste in anime.
Also Yuuko is worst girl.
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Oh wait you like AKB0048 your taste in anime isn’t shit. Crap.
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It’ll probably make my top 5 next time I update my list.
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Grumpy was like 6th or something, just barely out of the top 5.
Also Yuuko could be worst girl—maybe—but she’s the best idol. She’s absolute.
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