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The IDOLM@STER Series Producer Yozo Sakagami Steps Down
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
In a separate announcement also on the franchise's website, 765 Production general manager Kōji Hatano stated that there are no plans to appoint a replacement for Sakagami yet, but the franchise's projects and plans will continue as scheduled.
The IDOLM@STER franchise's upcoming anime series projects include The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls U149, which will premiere on April 5; The IDOLM@STER Million Live! (image, right), which will premiere in October; and The IDOLM@STER Shiny Colors, which will premiere in spring of 2024. Both The IDOLM@STER Million Live! and The IDOLM@STER Shiny Colors will have theater screenings starting August and October, respectively before their television premiere.
The franchise most recently announced the PROJECT IM@S vα-liv project, which will launch in spring. The story will feature apprentice idols who are aiming to debut on streaming platforms.
The IDOLM@STER franchise began as an arcade game in 2005, with the player tasked with producing idols in a fledgling idol company, managing practice schedules, concerts, CD releases, and time off. The game was first ported to the Xbox 360 in 2007, and had a sequel game in 2011, which finalized the first 13 characters of the franchise. Later spinoffs include The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls social game, which introduced the story of a larger set of entirely new characters within the story of multimedia conglomerate; The IDOLM@STER: Million Live!, which includes the original 13 characters alongside new characters; The Idolm@ster SideM, which focused on male idols all of whom had "unique reasons" for becoming idols; and The IDOLM@STER Shiny Colors, a mobile game and the most recent entirely new entry in the franchise, with new female idols and a return to gameplay features from the first two games.
The first anime adaptation for the franchise was 2007's Idolmaster: Xenoglossia, a spinoff mecha anime. A-1 Pictures and Nishigori adapted the first two games in 2011's The IDOLM@STER anime, and also produced the 2014 anime film THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE: Kagayaki no Mukōgawa e!. The studio and some of the original staff returned for both 2015's The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls and 2017's The Idolm@ster SideM anime.
Source: The IDOLM@STER franchise's website (link 2) via Gematsu
Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.
