As a WMG subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
The anime ends with the Project Jupiter failing to launch in the first place.
The reason is because of the Producer. If you look at it, each Idolmaster game always start with the Producer having his first time producing, thus in 2, the Producer arrives after the Project Jupiter is launched, and Ryuugu Komachi group have been defeated. In the anime, the Producer arrived BEFORE Project Jupiter was launched, thus if all goes well, then the Producer will strengthen Studio 765 and Ryuugu Komachi's reputation so it does not lose against Project Jupiter.- Jossed as of episode 10. It shows that Jupiter is doing fairly well as an Idol group.
Yukiho is a Yakuza Princess
Think about it. Her father has many underlings, is very secretive, and apparently rarely met Yukiho. Either he's operating in another city, or Yukiho is trying to distance herself from her father's ways. Further backing this theory up is the fact that there's a story in the drama CD detailing Ritsuko rescuing Yukiho from kidnapping. In the end of the anime, Jupiter would defect after learning the much more sinister approach of Kuroi
They, especially Touma, were shown to be disgusted at Kuroi's underhanded tactics. I reckon that they will eventually leave Kuroi for bringing in dirty tactics and not let them beat 765 Pro purely with their power. But they'll not defect to 765, but instead goes to another production company (possibly Elder Records) just so they can compete with the 765, but without dirty tricks.And hopefully with Jupiter leaving, 961 will end up going downhill, leaving Kuroi in misery for every of his atrocity in the name of what he thought to be his 'superior' way to raise idols.
- A bit stretching it, i guess. The anime had been relatively faithful to the iM@S 2 canon so far.
- Confirmed as of episode 21, although whether Jupiter will make another appearance is debatable.
- They make two brief appearances in episode 24 and 25, starting to get back on track after leaving 961.
- And karma got a CHECKMATE by Kuroi in the final episode, seeing that he's still well and managed to give one last sucker punch to 765 Pro.
Kuroi is in love with Kotori.
Since both he and the President were friends with Kotori in their school days, it's very possible that Kuroi developed feelings for Kotori, and grew jealous when she seemed to pick the President over him. This, in addition to their differing ideologies, is what spawned Kuroi's bitter rivalry. Hints of this can also be seen at the end of episode 21, where Kuroi frequents the bar where Kotori works part time as a singer. He then quickly leaves in the middle of Kotori's performance, with the President musing that Kuroi is terrible at expressing his feelings.- Jossed. The manga series Asayake wa Koganeiro, which follows the same continuity as the anime series, elaborates on the relationship between Kotori, Takagi and Kuroi. The downfall between the presidents was due to management issues regarding Kotori's mother, who was an idol who they both produced and held a striking resemblance to Kotori. Besides, if you take a close look to the photo displayed on episode 21 of the presidents with a girl, you can see the girl's beauty mark is not near her chin but below her eyes, hinting that it's not actually Kotori but her mother.
Ryou's story is an extremely long and complicated Gambit Roulette on his part.
First suppose that the ability to craft an incredibly convoluted plot is genetic. Now consider what a teenage boy would do with that ability. Assuming that Ryou's sex drive wins out over his self-consciousness, he's got a pretty sweet deal going for him (as legions of dirty-minded fan artists will attest). Clarice from Cinderella Girls is blind
This is actually a very common fanon portrayal of her. The reason many people, myself included, think this is because all of her cards portray her with her eyes closed. And being blind while still remaining a passionate idol would go really well with the nun theme. Xenoglossia is actually a Show Within a Show
More specifically, it was created in-universe by the staff at 765 Pro as a way to promote the idols. Not only does this explain why the art style is so different compared to the games, but also explains the different voice actresses: the idols were more experienced with singing than voice acting, and thus hired voice doubles to substitute for themselves. The reason why Miki, Hibiki, and Takane don't appear in Xenoglossia is because they were still working for 961 during the time it was being produced. Takane has Asperger Syndrome
She talks to everyone with formalisms, she always wears long dresses, she likes to be alone, she talks very few, she's centered in ramen and nothing else like a routine...- She's shown to be closer to the youngest-aged idols (Asperger people, according to the Useful Notes page, sometimes have atypical friends, and it's noted on her character page), but otherwise she personally doesn't appear to show much interest in the other idols (in that she isn't shown to have especially close friendships with any of them, unlike, say, Haruka/Chihaya or Yukiho/Makoto). She's also shown to be Literal-Minded (Episode 2), too, another common trait.
The Producer is Secretly Wealthy
The manager of a superstar typically earns a 20% commission for their work. Without even counting the massive Cinderella Girls cast, the Producer should be rolling in cash from all the endorsement money they're earning. Those suits he always wears are probably child labor hand-woven silk Armani with geniune baby seal leather shoes. The Idolmaster universe has Magic Realism
Takane's existence, sure, as she's been at times hinted to be from the moon... but how about Chihaya's true end in iM@S2, where Chihaya's voice comes back after Producer spoke to the sparrow largely implied to be her dead brother? But, since the focus in the series is in raising the idols' careers, these things aren't really elaborated on.