Jitsuyori, 2nd GIG

Aikatsu Planet! is a live-action dorama. I did actually notice that the logo in the BN Festival thing had a planet theme, but I thought it would be something like "Aikatsu! Around the World" rather than "Aikatsu! But IRL girls use Avatars."

It's like regular Aikatsu! but with all the anime bits replaced with live action, so the 3DCG performances are the same.

I wonder how this will work for the game since in the game they use the CG models to tell the story, and obviously live-action girls will look weird doing repetitive motions unlike CG models.

When I said I wanted the exclusive units back, I really didn't mean I wanted them to take over the whole show!

I know TakaraTomy/avex/EXILE GROUP found a lot of success with Girls x Senshi, but I don't think that'll transfer clearly to a pure idol thing. I mean obviously I really hope it works and I'll be watching it subbed or not but it's certainly a leap.

I wonder if this is not only to get cheaper production aside from the CG performances, but to also appeal more to the Aikatsu! Onii-sans. The actresses they picked are way older than the ones from Idol x Senshi, and the lead actress/lead performer from the new unit already has a self-intro video on the main Aikatsu! YouTube (apparently she used to play OG Aikatsu! and still has her pass from around Akari Generation/2015).

I watched the whole BN Fes video, and what became apparent was that they didn't have much ready. They showed off the new machine, and some of the Swing pieces, but they didn't play it. They did perform two new songs and they're like simple ditties which are rock inspired and very Aikatsu!

The three main elements they've touted so far are actually very removed from the franchise, even outside of the live action thing. There's;

Battles: Of course Aikatsu! has had raibaru battles before, and they were touted a lot during Stars! as On Air Battles. I think they remained the same in Friends!, but it was just called "Raibaru to Aikatsu!" and didn't do anything special.

This time around the battles are the main focus, which means there'll be a lot more winning and losing than there was in Friends!, story-wise. At the same time, they haven't shown any footage from the game with solo stages, which I think would be way too big a change to have every stage in the game be one type. To be fair, the game footage so far was like 15 seconds from a 48 second PV of one stage. I guess I'll have to wait to see more on these.

Swing: These are square tiny card things that are printed diagonally, rather than the full Aikatsu! card with a dress piece and a most times an idol on them. Swing appear to be what your Dresia are stored on.

Dresia: These are like... magical animal constellation things? They're not mascots (thankfully) but they transform into dresses and can do stuff in the middle of your stage that are like Grade Changes from Stars! and Friends! (a lucky chance type thing that replaces Fever where your dress goes from N to R or R to PR or PR to [whatever it is this year] in the middle of a stage). Going by the outfits they wore during their performance, I was assuming Cute/Cool/Sexy and yes even Pop (!!!) were staying, but I noticed that the Dresia actually have different types; so far I've seen that Aurora Pegasus is a Fairy Type, and some cat thing is a Jewel Type.

Clothing brands are also MIA, and I bet they're gone. I'm sad about that, I love brands.

These two things, the replacement of Types and the removal of brands, mark extreme differences from previous Aikatsu! series. These were things that had never even been questioned before, and now they're just g-o-n-e.

They also introduced the manager lady for the series, and she looks like Rola (the talento). I'm betting she's also ha-fu since she spoke English during a bit ("Do you know where the Amusement Park is? I love Japanese Aikatsu!!!!")

This is way different from the dream I had the other day where the new Aikatsu! was just an idol who looked vaguely like Seira in a world with alternate universe Ichigo, Akari and Yume. Anyways, we'll see how it goes, but I'm actually kind of excited now! Waku waku ga tomannai!

Right before I went to sleep last night, because I never stop thinking about Aikatsu!, I realized that Aikatsu Planet! may actually just be a reskin of DataCarddass Digimon Universe Applimon. I remember an Applimon video where they showed it off, and the battle screen that flashed briefly during the Aikatsu Planet! PV looked at lot like the Applimon one.

It then occurred to me that Swing are possibly just Applimon chips but turned diagonally. I have to do more research into DataCarddass Applimon before I can confirm but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

Then it occurred to me that Aikatsu! may become Digimon; a successful Bamco franchise that went awry (Friends! for Aikatsu!, Frontier or Savers or Xros Wars or Applimon for Digimon) and so they just keep rebooting it weird in hopes that something will stick.