The Illusion of Continuity in Idolmaster: Unraveling the Confusing Timeline

[@imassubs]

If you have any doubts or questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Depending on whether we have a chance to escape from Chihiro's supervision to reveal more secrets about the timeline, we will do a Q&A.

[@aslamnurfikri7640]

Don't forget Aimi (Julia's seiyuu) is singlehandedly responsible for BanG Dream!'s existence. Maybe it's also not a coincidence that Aimi's character in Bandori, Kasumi Toyama, is Poppin'Party's vocalist and guitarist

[@handling_this_handle.-.]

Also The VA of Uzuki Shimamura, the face of Cinderella Girls, (Ohashi Ayaka) was among the first 5 seiyuu to be casted for the Bandori project! among Ayaka there is also Kurosawa Tomoyo (on Bandori she is Michelle VA) and in Million lives with Aimi There is Itou Miku (on Bandori she is Kokoro VA) and Tadokoro Azusa (as Kaoru on Bandori, also in Mirishita she is one half of D/Zeal the other one being Aimi)

[@rebeccathumb9584]

LISTEN MAN Xenoglossia is the wildest most unpredictable anime i've ever seen, it's a beautiful disaster that i'd highly recommend to anyone

[@imassubs]

I'm sure it is, but its relationship with Idolmaster is as much as Full Metal Panic with Full Metal Alchemist.

[@Onyx765]

A hot mess but definitely worth the watch! I treat it like those fake movie trailers from the iM@S anime lol

[@Yuukecchi]

Finally ive been looking for a video like this describing the lore. Never thought there'd be spoilers. As a casual that watched the Cinderella Girls anime and played Starlight Stage I was always interested but learning japanese is a hurdle. Thanks!

[@022107]

8:20 BEHOLD! For he, the guy who started the male idol branch of iM@S has arrived!

[@BonBonToro]

As a longtime fan that first found out about idolm@ster through PS Home and followed it since the SP era, I never actually queried much about like the timelining of the games 😂 I guess it's mainly because I followed the music and just the animes more but great to see all the hard work being put to try and organize everything, even down to the mangas, novels, and drama cds which probably get overlooked 🙈 Edit: Haruka going from 17 to 18 to 19 only to go back to 17.......................I see, so Haruka is the next Usamin because she is actually forever 17 plus this must've been influenced through talks Nana and Haruka had in Starlit Season, guise we cracked ze konami code!!!11!1!!!!!!11!! 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

[@whatthe712]

please please please make more lore videos!!! these are the best, and there’s such a lack of imas analysis content and stuff like it on the en side. please keep up the good work!!

[@JobadiahP]

Another banger upload. Thank you for continuing to educate westerners about iM@S

[@aslamnurfikri7640]

12:02 this is not surprising sinche 346 Pro is a much bigger company compared to 765 Pro. Citing Cinderella Girls anime it is not only an idol agency, but an entertainment conglomerate which may include model agency, acting agency, tv production house, radio station, music studio, etc and facility to house them. It also means it has more corporate structure overseen by director board and investors, many don't care much about the entertainment aspect and only focuses on the money. Hence events like in season 2 where idol division could be disbanded maybe caused by budget cuts caused by lower annual profit. So idol division was given a chance to justify its existence by being profitable instead of just being entertaining

[@Kaimax61]

Yeah as someone who played since L4U, I always treat every media release as their own stand alone thing, unless they say otherwise. That's why I don't have a problem with continuity. Imagine watching U146 and getting hung up seeing Arisu isn't in Project Krone or Chie not in her own already existing unit with Mizuki, Sarina and Haruna. 😂

[@Sakurabliss7]

Fantastic video! I really enjoyed it!

[@somerandomyoutubeaccount4959]

Man predicted idolmaster love live crossover 6 moths in advance, that’s impressive

[@craigsmith6039]

The best way to view continuity and canon in idolmaster is to do it the way Macross does it: treat every single idolmaster media as in-universe productions based on real events that we never see. Nothing is truly canon because of this. It would be the equivalent of learning history and the only way is off of movies and TV shows. This does mean that the franchise technically avoids alternate continuities, regardless of if you play Idolmaster 2, or read the mangas based off of it (such as The World is All One), or watch the anime (which is largely based on 2), or read the manga by Mana (which is based off the anime). They're all exactly that: productions based on a real event.

[@pepperkalim]

this took me on a loop with all those plot holes but still! imas saikou 🥳

[@tsurbwobniar20]

Who's looking forward to watching the upcoming "THE iDOLM@STER Million Live! (Anime)" this year and do you guys think it might be canon to "THE iDOLM@STER (2011 Anime)"? Just asking out of curiosity.

[@nork22]

I'm looking forward to it, but as a long time producer just take the ML anime as nonlinear canon. The writers might pull stuff from the anime, movies, the mobages or even the manga like Brand New Song to fit it's own story canon.

[@kamijounotouma4686]

Well the ML characters is seen wearing the im@s movie shirt, so i hope it follows a linear timeline

[@Amacherasu]

Meeeeeee

[@Onyx765]

Now that the ML anime has aired in its entirety (fingers crossed for a second season tho) I'd like to believe that it follows the events of the OG 765 anime and of course the movie :)

[@tsurbwobniar20]

By any chance does anyone know about "THE IDOLM@STER MILLION LIVE! ANIMATION STAGE"? It's an events series of THE iDOLM@STER Million Live! Theater Days game that's canon to the anime adaptation of THE IDOLM@STER MILLION LIVE!. I found out about it on a KZbin video called "The iDOLM@STER Million Live Theater Days - M@STERPIECE EVENT (ENG SUBS) on the KZbin channel named Sankyuu ML Subs which seems to be a prequel to "THE IDOLM@STER MILLION LIVE! (Anime)". Plus it also similar to, albeit slightly different from the anime movie "The Idolmaster Movie: Beyond the Brilliant Future!". See it for yourself if you ever get a chance.

[@jakeastside]

With my slow internet, thought Kratos was somehow involved… still a good watch!

[@deucalion5168]

Wonderful! Thank for all the hard works you pour into this.

[@camembrtcheese]

I'm a casual IM@s fan and this video actually brought to my attention the fact that there way more IM@S media than I initially thought, which is really interesting. But at the same time it made it all the more confusing. About the video itself though, I feel like you should've done some sort of chart when transitioning from a game/manga/etc to the other, linking them or, at the very least, the release date of the thing you're referring to, so the viewer can follow along.

[@josephdiez2045]

Ryo is inevitable

[@SnowballK4T]

Did you take the 23:50 capture of Uzuki appearing in Animas from reddit? I think I took that exact one a few years ago haha

[@Disuga]

This really clear stuffs that I don't know

[@nork22]

As a long time fan since the end of 1st Vision and the start of 2nd... your video makes me nod a lot about the "timeline". I just treat everything as alternate timelines that our Gods at Bamco like to throw at a board and see how the fandom can take the randomness. Also DO NOT RECOMMEND PLATINUM STARS to anyone. Just get them to play the better game with a semblance of a story in STELLA STAGE! A shame also you didn't have time to look into the new im@s anime in 2023. U149 is a landmine.

[@andrewfantome4020]

So, our P-san avatar in each game in the anime is a separate character that exists independently of the others?

[@imassubs]

Most of the time. I mean, what other way there is to return the idols to level 1?

[@andrewfantome4020]

@@imassubs So at the moment there are 4-5 independent P-san in the anime universe, not counting the mentioned Producer from Cinderella, with whom one of the girls from a parallel agency was in love?

[@nork22]

I count about 13ish if you include manga Ps.

[@andrewfantome4020]

@@nork22 Counting manga with an original plot or just adaptations of the games themselves?

[@nork22]

@@andrewfantome4020 That's the thing... the a lot of the official mangas don't really adapt the games story. They tell the story of the idols. I believe there were 2 official Chihaya mangas with 2 different producers.

[@muhamadrizkyananda]

How I only find this video today lol I think you should include Puchimas since manga and anime doesn't seems sharing timelines lmao anyway just want drop some trivia about imas medias that sharing timeline - A1-produced imas animes (especially 2011 - SideM as the episode 0 is directly after Movie) with imas Mana mangas - iM@S SP True End with Puchimas (Manga)

[@DelfaTime]

13:13 at this point he's not managing anything he's playing Starcraft 2 LMAO

[@101Leafy]

gigachadP

[@kuraux56s59]

Oh my goodness. I somehow ended up on this video while trying to find out just what the hell was the deal with those cynical Mio Honda Rant Songs. ...Why the hell does a series about idols rivals Bomberman in terms of an incredibly inconsistent continuity!? And oh my goodness the Super Robot Wars collab... I cant believe that exist... 12:49 You... You are joking.... Is that freaking Euzeth "SORE MO WATASHI DA/THAT WAS ME AS WELL!!!" Gozzo!? (For context. Euzeth is a villain that manages to return in a lot of different SRW Continuities due to reincarnations that allow him to keep his memories.)

[@shira_yone]

I'm someone who only have passing interest for the series and never really got into it proper. Seeing this typical namco mess is funny and confusing at the same time.

[@AngelGVC8620]

Well, we don't have a canon story but at least all the Namco, CG, Million Live, SideM & Shiny Colors idols are in the same world)? :'3

[@alexanderb1433]

[@Eluko-chan]

Hello. I just got into franchise this week. Finished the cinderalla girls anime and is watching the original now. I was going to download the mobile gacha game until I noticed that there were like 4 or 5 different games on the appstore? Just briefly looking at it, it seems like each spin-off has its own game? I don't have time to play all and was hopefully you could recommended me which game to got for. Ideally, I was hoping that there is at least 1 game where all universe are combine. It would suck if each game is really for each spin off and you can't get the characters from another spin off.

[@nork22]

There's only really 3 mobages now. 2 of them are rhythm games (Cinderella Girls Stralight Stage and Million Live Theatre Days). The 3rd game is Shiny Colors. It's kinda hard to describe the gameplay but best I can say is that it's a VN with training runs to get your idol to be Top Idol. Theres SideM Glowing Stars which is also a rhythm game, but Bamco is cancelling it and a lot of imasP are still bitter about it. If you wanted a game that combined the branches there was Poplinks which was a simplistic puzzle game (kinda like Candy Crush) but that was cancelled. The only real game that combines the branches is Starlit Season on the PC or PS4. Oh and obviously it is all in Japanese and limited English guides or patches for these games. So yeah welcome fellow Producer to the wild world of idolm@ster.

[@Eluko-chan]

@@nork22 Thank you. I saw Starlit Season and the game looks amazing. Was hoping it would come to mobile because I'm too lazy for PC. I will go for Stralight Stage since I like the cast.

[@oniric_element]

So, are Cinderella Girls and Starlight Stage share the same story and/or continuity? As a newcomer fan who started with Starlit Season, them being 2 separate games confuses me

[@Kaimax61]

Then simply don't treat them as a continuity. You already see the original cinmas game has the og 765 girls, but they are not included in Deresute at all. As a veteran producer since L4U, I always assume everything is reset to the status quo, unless the game mentions it themselves.

[@rikajougasaki3296]

mobam@s very slowly retconned the 765 girls out. Heck, mobam@s' original purpose was basically to be a 765Pro game and the other girls were kinda extra, basically what Million Live is today.

[@shira_yone]

@@rikajougasaki3296 how about theater days?

[@rikajougasaki3296]

@@shira_yone I ain't an ML expert, but I believe they try to make it obvious that ML's out there setting and Theatre Days' groundedness are different continuities. In Theatre Days itself, there are events that are specifically in-continuity with the grand anime continuity and not canon to the game.

[@shira_yone]

@@rikajougasaki3296 I see. It's kind of sad that I miss the og ML game, but at least many has archived it.