History YMMV / TheIdolmaster

* FriendlyFandoms: With Music/{{Vocaloid}}. The "P names" for Vocaloid producers was derived from iM@S, there is a large Vocaloid convention called "The Voc@loid M@ster", ''[[VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva Project Diva 2nd]]'' had [=iDOLM@STER=] costumes as DLC, and Music/HatsuneMiku herself appeared as a guest idol in ''2''.

* VanillaProtagonist: Haruka occasionally gets accusations of this.

** Iori has covered [[LightNovel/{{Bakemonogatari}} Nadeko Sengoku's]] ImageSong, "Ren'ai Circulation", with Eri Mizutani having Nadeko's [[Creator/KanaHanazawa Japanese voice actress]]. [[spoiler:It turns out that, like Iori, Nadeko isn't as cutesy or innocent as she appears to be.]]

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: In the series, Azusa becomes an idol just to get more attention to find her destined man. But in real life, a female idol who looks for a man as her love life only causes more ruckus for idol fans.

* ArchivePanic: As of 2020, with a lot of Games, lots of Soundtracks and some television adaptations and [[UpToEleven counting]], newcomers to the franchise will have trouble catching up.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: It's a game about JPop, so quite a few of the songs. The spinoff manga ''Puchimasu!'' probably qualifies too.
** The preschoolers in Episode 24.
** ''Shiny Festa'' ''Visionary'' is two minutes of sugary cuteness.
** Almost 99% of what the Petit Idols in the anime.

* {{Narm}}: In the anime, Kuroi seems to have a fetish on chess, Go, etc and likes making up things to make Check Mate (and says it out loud)... until you realize that he's just arranging the pieces into some shapes he likes rather than making an actual check mate situation... Clearly the man knows ''nothing'' about the board games he plays.

** Chihaya's robotic-sounding delivery of ''Ohayou!!Asagohan'' in the first game caused fans to come up with the memetic character [[RobotMe Mecha-Chihaya]]. This is sometimes paired with a ShoutOut to ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'', where one of the megacorporations is the Kisaragi Corp. Mecha-Chihaya became an AscendedMeme in the anime, in the form of ''[[SuperRobot Mujin Gattai Kisaragi]]''.

* ArchivePanic: As of 2020, with a lot of Games, lots of Soundtracks and some television adaptations and [[UpToEleven counting]], newcomers to the franchise will have trouble catching up.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[AwesomeMusic/TheIdolmaster Has its own page.]]

* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** [[{{Tomboy}} Makoto]] [[{{Bifauxnen}} Kikuchi]] is this of the main characters.
** During the arcade game's location tests, Yukiho was the most produced character during both tests.
** In terms of costumes, My Dear Vampire and Wired Marionette are insanely popular for cosplay. There's also Gothic Princess, which is merely a Cute & Girly recolor, only has simple solid colors, and has low stats, but became rather popular among players for the ElegantGothicLolita vibe it gives off, and is featured very prominently in merch.
** [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterCinderellaGirls Cinderella Girls has its fair share of them, found in its own YMMV page.]]
** Million Live ain't no slouch in the darkhorse department either. From that game, there is:
*** [[ShrinkingViolet Anna Mochizuki]], the split-personality GamerChick.
*** [[OccidentalOtaku Emily Stewart]], the Western girl obsessed with Japanese culture.
*** [[OlderThanTheyLook Konomi Baba]], the reliable adult that looks like a little girl.
*** [[CuteBookworm Yuriko Nanao]], the book-reader with a wild imagination.
*** [[DisappearedDad Shiho Kitazawa]], the lonely stoic with an adoration for picture books and small cats.
* FanPreferredCouple: [[TomboyAndGirlyGirl Yukiho/Makoto]] seems to be for a major part of the ([[EvenTheGirlsWantHer mostly female]]) fanbase (or at least based on what you see on Comiket and other [[{{Doujinshi}} amateur publication]] events)
* FriendlyFandoms: With Music/{{Vocaloid}}. The "P names" for Vocaloid producers was derived from iM@S, there is a large Vocaloid convention called "The Voc@loid M@ster", ''[[VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva Project Diva 2nd]]'' had [=iDOLM@STER=] costumes as DLC, and Music/HatsuneMiku herself appeared as a guest idol in ''2''.

* WinBackTheCrowd: ''Poplinks'' seems to have been made as a response to the backlash about [=SideM=] not being in ''Starlit Season'', as it includes playable idols of almost all branches including [=SideM=]... though aside from Ryo, ''Dearly Stars'' is still out of luck. [=SideM=] also received much more attention from Bamco in 2022.

** WinBackTheCrowd: ''Poplinks'' seems to have been made as a response to the backlash about [=SideM=] not being in ''Starlit Season'', as it includes playable idols of almost all branches including [=SideM=]... though aside from Ryo, ''Dearly Stars'' is still out of luck. [=SideM=] also received much more attention from Bamco in 2022.

** [[http://danbooru.donmai.us/wiki/show?title=home_haruka Home Haruka]], a skin for Playstation Home [[UncannyValley gone wrong]] and then subsequently satirized in a manner similar to Black Haruka.

** Due to the popularity of iDOLM@STER in Japan, Sony offered a Haruka "skin" for avatars in ''VideoGame/PlaystationHome''. The resultant skin, really intended like a plastic mask for the avatar, fell so forcefully into the UncannyValley that "Home Haruka-san" (as she's been dubbed) has become a minor meme on Nico Nico, particularly in the Vocaloid fandom where the 3D choreography program "Miku Miku Dance" is readily available. Home Haruka-san should be treated with the same amount of fear and respect as you would give [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} Michael Myers]].

* FriendlyFandoms: With Music/{{Vocaloid}}. The "P names" for Vocaloid producers was derived from iM@S, there is a large Vocaloid convention called "The Voc@loid M@ster", ''[[VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva Project Diva 2nd]]'' had [=iDOLM@STER=] costumes as DLC, and Creator/HatsuneMiku herself appeared as a guest idol in ''2''.

* FriendlyFandoms: With Music/{{Vocaloid}}. The "P names" for Vocaloid producers was derived from iM@S, there is a large Vocaloid convention called "The Voc@loid M@ster", ''[[VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva Project Diva 2nd]]'' had [=iDOLM@STER=] costumes as DLC, and Hatsune Miku herself appeared as a guest idol in ''2''.

* FriendlyFandoms:
** With Music/{{Vocaloid}}. The "P names" for Vocaloid producers was derived from iM@S, there is a large Vocaloid convention called "The Voc@loid M@ster", ''[[VideoGame/HatsuneMikuProjectDiva Project Diva 2nd]]'' had [=iDOLM@STER=] costumes as DLC, and Hatsune Miku herself appeared as a guest idol in ''2''.
** Zig-zagged with the ''Love Live!'' fandoms.

* SpotlightStealingCrossover: In ''One for All'', some fans noticed that ''Million Live'' got better representation than ''Cinderella Girls''. The choreography for the ''ML'' characters tended to be superior to those from ''CG'', and the ''ML'' characters have original skill names while ''CG'' characters have their song titles for skill names.

** While Jupiter wasn't well received during their debut due to the series consisting of female idols up until that point (except for [[WholesomeCrossdresser Ryo]]), fans have somewhat warmed up to them in the anime version; while they're still high-and-mighty jackasses (especially Touma), they clearly [[EvenEvilHasStandards show disgust]] when they realize Kuroi has been skipping past the MoralEventHorizon behind their ears. Their non-business moments with the cast in the [=OVAs=] also helped. Eventually, they turn over a new leaf as idols under 315 in ''[=SideM=]'', and act [[TookALevelInKindness significantly nicer than they did]] in ''2''. In fact, when ''Starlit Season'' didn't include them or any [=SideM-] idols as playable characters, there was an enormous backlash.

** While Jupiter wasn't well received during their debut due to the series consisting of female idols up until that point (except for [[WholesomeCrossdresser Ryo]]), fans have somewhat warmed up to them in the anime version; while they're still high-and-mighty jackasses (especially Touma), they clearly [[EvenEvilHasStandards show disgust]] when they realize Kuroi has been skipping past the MoralEventHorizon behind their ears. Their non-business moments with the cast in the [=OVAs=] also helped. Eventually, they turn over a new leaf as idols under 315 in ''[=SideM=]'', and act [[TookALevelInKindness significantly nicer than they did]] in ''2''.

** Naturally, the franchise also has a rivalry with fellow idol franchises such as ''Franchise/LoveLive''. ''LL'' in particular draws snark from ''iM@S'' fans due to what they perceive as lower-quality CG animation, the smaller cast of characters (though one could argue that a [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters larger cast]] [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools doesn't always mean a better cast]]), and the comparatively loud fanbase. %%Some ''Love Live!'' fans also pointed out that the girls' relationship to the ''male'' Producer is not a good example to some Yuri fans.

** It might not be reciprocated, but because Creator/KentaroMiura has been known to be a huge fan of this series, to the point of being erroneously being blamed for a ton of [[ScheduleSlip schedule slipping]], Manga/{{Berserk}} fans have been shown to dislike this series because of the competition; it isn't unusual to find comments in Idolmaster-related Website/YouTube videos or web-page articles commenting on ''Berserk'' potentially being delayed again and/or general reactions of "He put ''Berserk'' on hiatus for THIS?!". However, in modern times blaming Idolmaster for hiatus now is seen as beating a dead horse since it's generally understood that it was, at the time, a fandom in-joke taken way too seriously.

** Some may say all of ''Million Live'' is this. At first considered to be an unnecessary cash-grab of a mobile game when the older ''Cinderella Girls'' already exists. Once the characters began to show more depth, the music attributed to the game started to improve, and the event themes became more interesting, ''Million Live'' is starting to show a decent-sized (not to the extent of ''CG'') and loyal fanbase. Helps that it's the easier game to access for a western audience than its [[NoExportForYou spiritual older sibling]].

* SpotlightStealingCrossover:
** In ''One for All'', some fans noticed that ''Million Live'' got better representation than ''Cinderella Girls''. The choreography for the ''ML'' characters tended to be superior to those from ''CG'', and the ''ML'' characters have original skill names while ''CG'' characters have their song titles for skill names.
** ''Starlit Season'', which was meant to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the franchise, completely left out ''[=SideM=]'' and ''Dearly Stars'' entirely, which caused the tag for ''[=SideM=]'' to trend on Japanese twitter. While having mixed gender units might not have been feasible, the fact that ''[=SideM=]'' did not get their own sort of spinoff game really stung for fans of the series, and it still doesn't excuse ''Dearly Stars'', which didn't even get promotional art or songs like ''[=SideM=]'' did.

! The 765 Production games:

[[WMG:[[center: [-'''''Franchise/TheIdolmaster'' YMMV index'''\\

'''General''' | 765 Continuity ([[YMMV/TheIdolmaster2 2]], [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterMillionLive Million Live!]]) | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterDearlyStars Dearly Stars]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterCinderellaGirls Cinderella Girls]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterSideM SideM]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterShinyColors Shiny Colors]] | [[YMMV/IdolmasterXenoglossia Xenoglossia]]]]]]-]

** Ryou getting new card sets in both ''[[VideoGame/TheIdolmasterSideM SideM]]'' in his F-LAGS persona and ''Cinderella Girls'' in his Dearly Stars persona on the same week (Valentine's 2017) led to some fans jokingly accusing him of [[LivingADoubleLife working two idol careers at once.]]

'''General''' | 765 Continuity ([[YMMV/TheIdolmaster2 2]], [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterMillionLive Million Live!]]) | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterDearlyStars Dearly Stars]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterCinderellaGirls Cinderella Girls]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterSideM SideM]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterShinyColors Shiny Colors]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterXenoglossia Xenoglossia]]]]]]-]

'''General''' | 765 Continuity ([[YMMV/TheIdolmaster2 2]], [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterMillionLive Million Live!]]) | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterDearlyStars Dearly Stars]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterCinderellaGirls Cinderella Girls]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterSideM SideM]] | [[YMMV/TheIdolmasterShinyColors Shiny Colors]]]]]]-]