354 Production

Congratulations to THE IDOLM@STER sound team at NAMCO BANDAI Studios! They claimed the top award in the sound category at the 2012 Computer Entertainment Developers Conference (CEDEC) ! Three members of the team pose with the award below. Note that they are all being totally awesome by wearing the 7th Anniversary Concert exclusive iM@S Producer-style ANIM@TION EDITION neckties ! Mr. Nakagawa, Mr. Uchita, and the Sound Director, Mr. Ishihara, pose with their award The award was given for “Surpassing the bounds of game music, J-pop songs from a game.” The full description for why they received the award reads as such: “The light J-pop songs created by the virtual-idol producing NAMCO BANDAI Studio Sound Team have surpassed the bounds of game music, brilliantly achieving things such as: appearing as opening and ending music for a television anime, realizing a dedicated 2-day concert at the Yokohama Arena, and having character single CDs hold 5 spots in the Oricon Weekly Top 10 chart...

So it seems I only update this blog now when one of the iM@S idols has a birthday. This time it's Takane, also one of my favorites! Coincidentally, the birthday for Takane's voice actor, Yumi Hara, falls on the same day! So be sure to celebrate both of their birthdays today! As usual, you can get free wallpapers and such from the official site . Also, you get a birthday video from Niconico too! 【ニコニコ動画】【四条貴音誕生祭２０１２】 Princess Game 【アイドルマスター】

I've been away from this blog for a while, but I couldn't pass up saying Happy Birthday to one of my favorite iM@S idols, Yukiho. Happy Birthday! Yes, I know it's not the 24th here in the USA, but it is in Japan, so that means it's her birthday to me. Now go get the free wallpapers and such from the official site !

So I got THE IDOLM@STER2 First-run Limited Production Edition today for PS3! I was so excited! I would have gotten it the day before yesterday, but I just didn't get home early enough to pick it up from the post office. Anyway, I picked it up yesterday, and there was no stopping me. First, a shot of the box. The box it came in next to my 360 copy of iM@S2 When I picked it up, it was lighter than I had imagined, and I it seemed a little small to get an A1-sized tapestry in it, but opening up would show my fears to be unfounded. Unpacking it all, I found everything I'd hoped for. The contents of the shipping box I unrolled the tapestry and the poster to take a look and them, as I had bought the game specifically from Gamers to get them. They are pretty awesome. The A1-sized tapestry The B4-sized poster I also opened up the foil packet to see what was on my anime film strip. Turns out it's the same as the Gamers postcard I got with the set. I wonder if maybe ce...

So I just made some Kara-age tonight from some kind of Kikkoman kara-age mix. It was really straightforward. I just cut up some chicken, shook it around in a bag with the mix, and then fried it. My results are below. I made some rice to go with it and just ate that. Wasn't bad. Some of the pieces were still a little powdery, but I blame that on my poor cooking ability. I feel like it was saltier than I would have liked, but I guess it's hard to adjust it when it's a pre-made powder. I'll have to look into a real recipe for kara-age sometime.

I just saw the banner today about the iM@S Social Game (temp name) coming out at the end of November. Although I had seen the blog post when it came out yesterday, I hadn't gotten around to reading it and sorta forgot about it. Anyway, it's certainly an interesting idea, and I'm curious how it will turn out. It seems that there will be over 100 girls to produce, including the already present 765 Production idols. I do hope the 876 Production idols will be available too, but no news on that. It will apparently be on Mobage . You will put together a team of 5 idols that you will produce from those over 100 girls and you can do jobs with them, raise their abilities through lessons, and have concert battles with rival idol teams. So far, it sounds a lot like regular iM@S, but with a lot more idols. But then they say they're going for some kind of card battle type game. So I'm curious as to what they're going to do with that. I was already getting my card battle ID...

It's Hamuzou's birthday today! Also Hibiki's. Anyway, as usual, you can get all your wonderful birthday extras from the official iM@S anime website .

The first DLC for iM@S2 PS3 has been announced ! The video is below. So the most exciting part of that was the end! I'd read from ANN a few days ago that Miku was going to be iM@S2 PS3 as DLC, but I got the impression from the article that maybe she'd just show up in the DOTOP TV as a PV with her song, and maybe show up as a rival at a festival. But she'll be in S4U! as well! That's awesome! Ok, sure it's not quite as awesome as if you were able to produce her in the regular game, but it'll still be amazing to have her in S4U!. I hope that she'll work the same as the other idols and you'll be able to choose her songs, clothing, stage, and stage partners. Looking closely at video though, it looks like "World is Mine" is to be Miku only though. I still hope it means there are Miku versions of the iM@S songs so that you can still put her with the other idols on stage. I'm really looking forward to it. As for the other DLC, it seems like th...

So just the other day, I tried out the Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Demo on my Xbox 360. It was an interesting experience, but I'm not sure I like it a lot. First thing I want to say is that my comparisons will mainly be to Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation. I think that's reasonable, considering that was the last game in the series to come out on the Xbox 360. Anyway, there are two modes in the demo, fighter plane mode and attack helicopter mode. I tried plane mode first. There are two control schemes you can choose for plane mode. One is called Standard, and the other one is called Original. Standard is an easier mode where the plane auto-levels in the absence of control inputs, and you simply push the left control stick in the direction you want to go. The rudder is still a separate control though that can be used for yaw adjustments. The demo defaults to this control scheme. Original gives you full control, making the x-axis of the control stick control the plane's roll...

For those that are interested in what had been keeping me busy for the previous week, I have pictures up now showing my trip out to Illinois to help do job fair recruiting for my company. Of course pictures of me hanging around a booth at a job fair wouldn't be very exciting, so the pictures were mainly taken when I was hanging out with friends before and after the job fair. Just click on the picture below to be taken to the appropriate Picasa album.

So I've been busy the past couple weeks, so I wasn't able to update, but here's a quick rundown of a few missed iM@S updates. First, is belated Happy Birthday to Ryo! His birthday was was on September 15th, as shown in Ryo's official character profile .. Unfortunately, there was no love for Ryo on the iM@S anime website, so you don't get the wallpapers, banners and twitter icons this time. Next, the Official IDOLM@STER Blog announced that a new opening song will be used for the iM@S anime next month! It will be called CHANGE!!!! (Wow that's a lot of exclamation points!). The single CD for it will then be released on November 9th. It will have a first-run limited edition version in a Digipak with a DVD, which will at least contain the non-credit video of the new iM@S opening featuring this song. The first-run edition will be 1,800 yen with tax, and the standard edition will be 1,200 yen with tax. Finally, there has been some updates on the details on the con...

It's Kotori's birthday now in Japan! I hope she has a wonderful day filled with delusions! As usual, you can get the standard birthday wallpapers and icons and such off of the iM@S anime website's Special Page . Also, I couldn't just leave this with a post just about the birthday freebies, so I've also included a Kotori video I enjoyed from the recent 7th MMD Cup on Niconico. <a href="http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm15356768">【第7回MMD杯本選】カードキャプターな魔法少女</a>

So I couldn't let a iM@S x Sakura Wars video go by without posting it so here it is. I think it's pretty cool. Enjoy! <a href="http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm15515555">アイドルマスター　サクラ大戦 「巴里よ、目覚めよ」</a>

I think the post title speaks for itself. ほっとステーション by くろのくろ on pixiv

Started watching Kami-sama Dolls (神様ドォルズ) last night and am basically caught up now. I like it. I was amused that the moment I saw Aki, I thought: "It's Accelerator", and I've been more or less right. Utao is really cute; I bet I would tease her like Kyouhei does since she's so cute. I don't understand how most of Hibino's clothing clings perfectly to the underside of her breasts. I blame danbooru and their "impossible_clothing" tag for making me even notice such things. And mikos? Mikos are awesome. Moyako is awesome. I'm glad to see even after they've left the village she will be around. And her sister wears an orange hakama. I'm not sure I have ever seen an orange hakama before. That was weird. And the opening is pretty cool and the songs for the opening and ending are both Chiaki Ishikawa goodness. I'd give a YouTube link, but all the ones I've found there have had their audio made crappy so YouTube won't take it down...

Yukiho is too cute! <p><a href="http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=21224577" target="_blank">ゆきほ</a> by <a href="http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=12404" target="_blank">い～どぅ～</a> on <a href="http://www.pixiv.net/" target="_blank">pixiv</a></p>

I just found out from her official blog that Yumi Hara (原由実) is afraid of dogs, even small ones like Chihuahuas. That's so cute! It's just like Yukiho, except it's Takane!

Now I have only seen the first episode of Nichijou, but watching this video has totally made me want to watch more of this show. <a href="http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm15384779">【日常MAD】日常・ザ・ファイヤー(ルパン・ザ・ファイヤー)</a>

If you're one of those rare people that actually come to visit this blog, you may have noticed that the visual style has changed. I've been learning CSS lately, so I thought I'd give customizations a shot. What do you guys think? Feel free to leave feedback in the comments.

The official IM@S blog brings us new details on G4U! First off, Although the video has been up since the beginning of August, I never linked it, so for those who haven't seen it yet, here is the G4U! playthrough promotion video. G4U! VOL.1 will be on the beach, and as can be seen from the video, the featured outfits are swimsuits. G4U! VOL.2 will be in a school classroom, and we get two school related outfits, one being the school uniform, and the other being the school swimsuit. There are no details yet on further volumes of G4U!. As posted previously, G4U! VOL.1 will be included in the the PS3 [THE IDOLM@STER 2] First-run Limited Production Edition Special Box, while subsequent volumes will be included in the [Anime & G4U! Pack] for each anime Blu-ray. The IM@S blog warns however that like the Special Box, the Anime & G4U Packs will also be limited production, so to be sure to pre-order if you want to get the later volumes of G4U!. And it has been confirmed that a fil...