Kai of Deluscar here reporting for duty. I’m here to wage idol war against Chikorita since I know he’s an idolm@ster guy. As I’m on the Love Live camp, unfortunately we will always be in opposition. Here’s my mission today, to infiltrate Chikorita’s blog and to spread the influence of Love Live from within an enemy base. Guerrilla warfare 101.
Before I go on though, I will admit I like both im@s and Love Live a lot. However it took me a rewatch for the former to appreciate it more, which I think was poor timing on my part. When I was watching im@s, I was still in the process of opening up to more genres, and marathoning it didn’t help either. The idol anime genre was definitely one genre I was pretty lukewarm to when I first came across it. As much as I love im@s now, it didn’t springboard me into an idol anime fan when I first watched it. So what did? Well, Love Live.
Watching Love Live allow me to see the bigger picture in idol anime, something which im@s never accomplished. So with this alone, Love Live pretty much won a lot of points for me. But additionally, despite being the same genre, both just have incredibly different settings with different appeals.
Im@s’s setting is more straightforward, and pretty much just emulates the real life idol industry as it is. While Love Live’s setting is a little more unique, it used the concept of school idols — idols who are a representative of their own schools.
Who would have thought a slight twist in the idol setting would worked such wonders? In Love Live, characters have a stronger sense of camaraderie, friendship and togetherness. Having their setting aligned to the popular high school setting also elicited a down-to-earth atmosphere. In comparison, im@s has a more professional feel. Idols would separate themselves into different units and even as solo artists, as if it’s “business as usual”, or perhaps it’s -exactly- “business as usual”, because im@s is just such a professional rendition of idol anime.
Anyway, this difference is also the reason I enjoy Love Live’s characters and dynamics a little bit more than im@s. Individually, they probably don’t shine much, but the cast played off so well with each other I naturally grow fond of everyone. In comparison, im@s has a slight upper hand in drama. Some character drama in im@s is surprisingly well-written, and is only made possible from it’s more professional setting. Chihaya’s story, being the prime example here.
Again, it all comes back to your preference in both completely different settings. As for me though, I’m on the Love Live side; always had been, and always will be. At this point, you can say I’m pretty much biased towards Love Live.
Because no matter how good idolm@ster is, it wasn’t able to accomplish something that Love Live did — springboard me into a fan of the idol anime genre, with it’s more fun, creative and dare I say, meme-y dynamics. Overall Love Live is just the more accessible idol series, whether it be the concept, story or even just their marketing strategy (I mean, even LLSIF is a hell lot more accessible than the imas games).
Without Love Live, I honestly wouldn’t have cared about rewatching idolm@ster, I wouldn’t have cared about watching AKB0048 and I sure as hell wouldn’t have cared about marathoning all 178 episodes of Aikatsu. It’s only thanks to Love Live that I have turned into such a passionate fan of the idol anime genre.
Love Live is love, Love Live is life, and nothing anyone can do can change that fact for me. So if you’re on the im@s camp, be prepared to go tooo waaaarrrr.
…just joking, I think.
It’s quite obvious where my loyalties lies, but I feel that idol wars are silly. It shows when 765 Pro and Muse performed together at one performance.
But yes, can’t forgot about this.
FYI: Love Live, Idolmaster and Aikatsu is owned by Bandai Namco, so does it matter anyway?
My “idol war” shtick is just a joke :p From what I know, people actually love the joint performance, which yeah, makes the idol wars kinda silly (I don’t mind some fun comparison myself, but some people really take this idol war thing a little too seriously).
Also, those looks awesome.
A joint performance is bound to happen given that both franchises are popular. Still, it’s funny to see that the Idolmaster fans still being angry about it.
But yes, I am talking about this
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2015/08/29/love-live-and-the-idolmster-casts-team-up-at-animelo-summer-live-2015-concert