Aikatsu!

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Because posting in seasonal threads for 50+ weeks is dumb.

What is Aikatsu?

Aikatsu! is an idol anime franchise aimed at younger audience. It has 3 separate series: Aikatsu! (178 ep. +movie +2 short features), Aikatsu Stars (100 ep. +movie), and Aikatsu Friends (? ep.) The franchise is animated by BN Pictures (Sunrise).

What is special about Aikatsu?

Aikatsu is a journey. The cast is full of quirky characters; the story is everything you might expect from a kids' show, yet it's never boring. Aikatsu also features quite a broad range of music genres: from J-Pop to folk to Gothic rock to Spanish motives to genres I don't know names of.

Oh, and how could I forget about Christmas episodes. They're awesome and very wholesome.

Is there a specific order to watch Aikatsu?

None of the three series are directly related to each other, so you may start with either of the three series. But, if at all possible, start with either Aikatsu! (and its movie and short features) or Aikatsu Friends, and watch Aikatsu Stars only after watching Aikatsu! Or you can just skip ep.69-70 on your first watch of Aikatsu Stars.

Ah, that's right. I don't believe you can find Aikatsu on any legal source or even torrent earlier episodes. If you have a strong distaste for streaming sites, you can just join me in watching Aikatsu Friends.


With intro done, hello and welcome to this humble thread. Due to the three titles being relatively independent of each other besides sharing Aikatsu system and the relative difficulty of watching earlier series, this is not a spoiler-free thread. Please keep details like who became a Starlight Queen after Mizuki or who made it into S4 under the spoiler tag.

Aikatsu Friends is a fair game to spoil, however. It's just one episode in, anyway.

...I really hope it won't be just me commenting for 50+ weeks of Aikatsu Friends run.

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Second episode's raws dropped on the usual site, so here we go.

Aine takes genki to another level staying peppy and bright pretty much the entire episode (she didn't get dead tired this time around, after all). Her attitude and overall positive vibes really take me back to early episodes of Aikatsu! Aine's a real joy to watch. Oh, and I wonder if "Bring it on" is going to become her catchphrase. ...I wouldn't mind: it's super catchy.
Mio is still a pro to the bone, only shaken out of it by Aine's boundless energy. Nothing much to say about her as she doesn't get much focus this time around. The next episode should bring the focus back to her...and her struggles with designing a coord, I guess.

Aikatsu Friends takes its sweet time to slowly introduce the world, the cast, and Aikatsu itself. It doesn't rush as much as Aikatsu Stars, and I'd say its pace is even more relaxed than Aikatsu! I wonder when the show gets to properly introduce two other girls to complete the quartet, but for now it went for Love Me Tear and the return of trampolines.

I can't say much about Love Me Tear aside from their great-looking performance (man, I love Believe it!, but why should the ED be so dull) and interesting group aura (very physics, very science-y). Karen's design looks like a love child of Ichigo and Hime, and Mirai looks quite a bit like Rola. Trampolines and Special Appeal training, on the other hand, are what I really want to gush about. I'll restrain myself, though, but this is basically what I missed so much. The return of trampolines means that there just might be interesting and potentially serious stuff focused on them. Feeling really giddy right now.

As an aside, I hope they're going to use Morohoshi Sumire's voice a lot. Her fangirling over not-Aoi and not-Ran was amusing, to say the least.

And that's it until Mezashite subs the episode.

[In-N-Out Double-Double & Animal Fries]

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Using Kurosawa Tomoyo's character for low-quality memes is not nice.