On Air! was a free-to-play mobile game developed by coly (the same creators as Stand My Heroes and Promise of Wizard), released on August 16, 2018 for Android and iOS platforms. The game revolved around a cast of high-school students who aim to be top Voice Actors in the Japanese voice acting industry.
You played as an Honor Student (officially named Hikari Amane, but you have the option of changing her name) who managed to be admitted into the prestigious Hosekigaoka High School as the school's first female student in 20 years. However, on the first day of school, a sudden announcement concerning the closure of the school was made. Tasked by famous voice actor and teacher Sae Areki, your job is to find and recruit the school's official units and organize a legendary event known as the 'Grand Euphoria' starring those units... if you can get them to co-operate, that is.
In March 2020, coly announced that On Air! would get a big update which improves the gameplay and introduces Live 2D models for everyone, letting the characters move for the first time. The update went live on 24th March with new features such as sending characters on jobs and a 'seiyuu room' where players can hear voice clips from their favourite characters.
July 31, 2020 eventually became the darkest day in its small but dedicated fandom as the game was announced for closure, and eventually Hosekigaoka High ceased its admissions on October 30, 2020. Players can still access the game to read stories until August 2021 but due to overwhelming support, coly announced on July 30, 2021 that access would be extended, with the game eventually closing completely in January 2022.
Not all is lost, however, as the game eventually got a stage play adaptation in June 2022 and a Nintendo Switch version was announced for a Spring 2024 release through crowdfunding.
This game contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: During Re:Fly's 1st unit event which takes place at a beach house, Mikado and Cosmo start making a rap out of the beach house's menu to attract guests. Mikado's voice actor, Haruki Ishiya, is best known as Jiro Yamada in Hypnosis Mic.
- April Fools' Day:
- On twiine, April Fools Day would start with Sae posting a note he received from a culprit where the students have swapped accounts with each other, along with a postscript saying that he isn't involved as a teacher. For the rest of the day, the boys would post on twiine as the account's original owner, with the swap list being revealed the next day.
- 2019's April Fools' Day prank was a Delinquent event taking place in an Alternate Universe where gangs are formed instead of units and problems are solved by fighting with each other.
- The 2020 April Fools Day event takes place in another Alternate Universe where the cast are hosts with superpowers working at a host club.
- Alternate Universe: The premise of the April Fools' Day events and the 2nd Anniversary event.
- The 2019 event took place in a world where everyone is a Delinquent with gangs being formed instead of units and problems are solved with fights.
- The 2020 event has the cast as hosts with superpowers working at the Colline de Bijoux host club.
- The 2nd Anniversary event takes place in 2 kingdoms with 30 kings where a wall separates them, causing one to have an Endless Daytime while the other is under The Night That Never Ends.
- Amusement Park: Two were featured in the game's events - Juouji Castle Park, which was featured in the Wish ★ Princes’ Christmas event, and Nyanja Land, where drop and Prid's go to in the Gather! Tears and Proud Heroes unit x unit event.
- Bland-Name Product:
- twiine, which is their version of Twitter. The game itself has a twiine feature where players get to have a look at the characters' social media accounts and starting from the Performance ★ Magical Halloween event, features image posts related to the current event at the time.
- line is Linenote except for the pronunciation.
- Nyanja Land is this to Namja Town, a cat-themed Amusement Park in Ikebukuro except that it's open-air instead of indoors.
- The Newcomer Voice Actor Award mentioned by Sae in Quest! Adventures of the Clumsy Hero is in real life the 'coly Award', a collaboration with coly and the annual Seiyuu Awards which rewards a newcomer voice actor with a role in the game.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: While the game is known for being generous with free Crystal Stars (the game's premium currency), players have the option of buying more with real money.
- Call-Back: The 2020 Birthday Cards post-Class Up had doodles surrounding the birthday boy feature their favourite items, Trademark Favourite Food and objects that reference past events they were involved in. In some cases such as Rei with the cat ears that lead to the Gather! Tears and Proud Heroes event, the cards double as Foreshadowing.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: It's no doubt that all of the male characters in the game are good-looking.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each unit is represented with a certain colour.
- Hot-Blood is red.
- Re:Fly is blue.
- Eme☆Kare is green.
- MAISY is orange.
- Prid's is yellow.
- drop is turquoise.
- Sae, and by extension the school faculty, is represented with black.
- Crossover: The game received a merch-only Sanrio collab in 2020. A shame that, during its promotion, coly announced the game's service termination...
- A Day in the Limelight: Each unit has a unit story depicting the formation of each unit before Hikari was admitted into the school.
- Events have a focus on a certain character depending on the scenario. More often than not, said character would usually be the gacha SSR.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The game's opening theme Now On Air!!! is sung by the voice actors for the units' leaders under 1 unit called 6Carats.
- Dragged into Drag: Once a year, an School Festival-themed event will depict some of the guys (aside from Tomoe who's already a Wholesome Crossdresser) dressed in female clothing for some reason:
- Sparkling! Our School Festival has a crossdressing contest held during the Hosekigaoka High School Festival - Aoi, Momose and Hotaru were depicted in girls' clothing in the event cards.
- Climax! The Athletic Meet of Sweat and Tears - while the main characters (Rei and Sora) were spared this fate, the crossdressers were the L class cheerleading team (Mikado and Tsubaki in cards) courtesy of Mikado.
- Evolving Credits: After the Big Update of March 2020, the opening sequence has been updated to include Live 2D models, drop's unit costumes and default SR/SSR card art as well as card art from past events.
- In July 2020, the credits went through another update to reflect the change in Nanao's voice actor.
- Excited Title! Two-Part Episode Name!: The naming format for events, sometimes as a Lucky Charms Title.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the game's stories, Cosmo never tells anyone of his real name (Yukiya Amahashi). Yet, when the player gets any card of his in the gacha, they all feature his real name as opposed to the name everyone knows him as.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: While the player character has an official name of Hikari Amane, you can choose to change her name when you start up the game.
- Mini-Game: During events, after the talk show segment which uses up AP, players will sometimes be prompted to play the 'uchiage' mini-game where the characters involved in the talk show get to an eatery of the host's choice... by launching them from a trampoline a la Angry Birds. Extra points are given depending on where the characters land and how many characters get there.
- The word 'uchiage' itself is a Pun, referring to both the after-party of entertainment events and launching (something) upwards. In other words, you get the characters to the after-party by launching them into the sky.
- Series Mascot: Hamuchu, a cute hamster character whom Ranma is a fan of. Hamuchu appears mostly on LINE where it's seen in monthly calendar wallpapers.
- Arata can also be seen as this for the game as he's the face of the app.
- Special Guest: As part of a collaboration with the Seiyuu Awards, newcomer voice actor Kei Kinoshita got to appear in the Quest! Adventures of the Clumsy Hero event as Via, who serves as the game's Mentor Mascot.
- Two-Teacher School: The Principal aside, the sole representative of the school faculty is Sae Areki, being the go-to teacher for most of the cast. However, other teachers are mentioned (though not by name) in other places such as drop's unit story and in certain twiine posts by Sae.
