YMMV / Ensemble Stars!

A-D

• Adorkable:
  • Though he tries to look like a serious and refined samurai, get Souma anywhere near some cute sea creatures (especially his pet turtle, Kamegorou) and he goes into immediate Cuteness Proximity mode. One event shows that the same applies to cats - when he comes across a stray, he instantly decides to protect it, and when he hears that Keito has been sending campus stray cats away, tries to hide the cat under his jacket so Keito won't find out, even claiming to Keito that it's totally normal for a growing young man to gain such a huge belly so quickly.
  • Eichi, as strange as it sounds, but his sheer delight at encountering ordinary 'lower class' things like hamburgers can be quite cute.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Fan-artists who played the game had their own interpretation of Anzu, but mostly for her appearance. And they either made her personality similar to how she canonically interacts with some additions of her being a Deadpan Snarker, or make their own personality for her. Most of the time, the Shrinking Violet aspect of her is thrown out the window as many thought that Anzu was a Silent Protagonist at first. In addition, many players are not very familiar with the game's sister series Ensemble Girls!, where most of Anzu's backstory comes from during the early days of the game's release and drops off most of her canon personality.
  • Eichi: was he truly someone who cared about the school, but had to take desperate measures to do so, even willing to be seen as a tyrant, or merely ruthless to those whom he considers an enemy? The light novel's afterword showed him to be a Guile Hero of some sorts.
    • A twitter user writes up what they think to be Eichi's character and motivations.
  • Yuzuru, after Mine Lady. Is he someone, while duplicitous, who honestly loves Tori and makes every decision he does because he's looking out for him but he's disoriented about what to do with his life now that Tori is acting more mature? Or is he a Green-Eyed Monster Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who is obsessed with being the closest to Tori and will humilliate anyone he even thinks Tori likes more than him?
  • Anzu's Irrational Hatred towards Eichi and Keito. Is it due to her seeing them as nuisances that threatened her new bond between her and Trickstar? Or is she taking her frustration and resentment towards Reika and Sakura out on them? Not helping that Eichi and Keito look a lot like Reika and Sakura respectively.
  • Kanata's extreme and quirky personality. Is that just how he naturally acts, or is it a form of escapism for his terrible home life? Aquarium heavily implies it's the latter.
  • Mika's Undying Loyalty and feelings concerning Shu - is he a Living Emotional Crutch or something more? Several instances seem to point to the former - note that when Shu goes off to talk with other people that Shu actually appreciates (like Nazuna, Kuro and the Five Oddballs) Mika isn't just jealous, he's depressed.
  • Due to Continuity Snarl concerning Souma's joining Akatsuki, fans are split on whether Souma truly believes that he was never involved in the "War" or if he (and by extension, the rest of his teammates) are in denial about all of his treatment during that period.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • Izumi/Makoto is a very popular ship in Japan and it's one of the Fan Preferred Couples in the Ho Yay section, but while it is still a fan favorite ship, it is received much less warmly in the west because many fans who don't like this coupling perceive it as very abusive and unhealthy.
    • Related to the above, Izumi is received less warmly in the west due to his obsession with Makoto, being a Base-Breaking Character. In Japan however, he is fairly popular.
  • Related to Trickstar winning the MV poll, a group of fans from the west started hating Trickstar simply because their favorite units didn't get to win the poll and reasons told in the Broken Base entry. Though, this is an opinion that is far from universal in the west fan community, making them Base Breaking Characters. Fans outside the west along with those not part of this group are okay with it in comparison.
  • Anzu is a massive Base-Breaking Character in the west due to how her characterization was handled and due to factors of Values Dissonance. In Japan and outside of the West, however, while still a Base-Breaking Character to some circles, many of the fans and players either love her, tolerate her, or ignore her existence altogether in favor of the boy characters.
  • Mayoi Ayase has a moderate fanbase overseas, but his fanbase in the west sees him as more of a Base-Breaking Character due to the nature of his character. See Base-Breaking Character for more information.
  • Rinne is wildly popular in his native country, but in America his hedonistic behavior and main story actions make him much more divisive. It’s not to say he doesn’t have any haters overseas, however.
• Angel/Devil Shipping: Shipping Eichi and Rei can be seen as this, due to their unit themes, contrasting appearances and dynamic. Taken even further in that Rei has a demon themed card while Eichi has an Angel one from separate gacha. However in terms of their roles in the story, Eichi is more of the “devil” character while Rei, due to being the Big Good, would be the “Angel”.
• Awesome Art: The CGs are bright, colorful, and downright pleasing to look at.
  • The MVs in Stars!! Music are praised for the realistic looking choreography, the detailed models, as well as stage designs.
• Awesome Music: Bound to have a lot of this, as the game revolves around idol groups (even if it isn't a Rhythm Game). A case can be made for every unit song but special mentions go to:
  • After the third event, all events get their own Leitmotifs, and they're all fitting to the events theme. The other BGM's are no slouch either.
  • Melody in the Dark, by UNDEAD, was a big hit with the fans as soon as it was released.
  • Bewitching Theater by Valkyrie made such an impression on the fans, to the point that Valkyrie's unit CD outsold every other unit's (including popular units UNDEAD and Ryuseitai) CD except for Knights'.
  • Knights The Phantom Thief by Knights. It could be easily mistaken as a Persona 5 Song.
  • Double Face’s debut song =EYE= is viewed as this by fans, and doubles as a moment of awesome for finally utilizing the other side of Madara Mikejima’s personality. The fact that it has a cool MV to go with it also helps.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Eichi. Depending on who you ask, he is loathed by a group for his actions in the story, some like him for being complex, and some forgive him a tad too easily.
  • Anzu is a polarizing one, at least in the west. Fans and players in the west felt that she's too flat and barely contributes much since they only saw her around designing costumes and preparing lives, and nothing else, giving the impression that she isn't as strong a heroine in the West under their standards of what female protagonists should be. This does, however, discount the theories involving her with the Ensemble Girls backstory. In Asia playerbases, she does have her detractors, but most of the time she is either liked by fans or simply ignored by those who don't feel she's relevant, but don't quite dislike her as a character.
  • Izumi is more divisive in the west than in Japan due to his characterization of how he is obsessed with Makoto and his Jerkass attitude to anyone else.
  • Tsumugi, particularly in the western fanbase due to the trouble he caused when he was a former member of fine and fans debating on whether or not he was truly manipulated by Eichi or if he was fully conscious of his own actions.
  • Madara quickly became this in the Western fanbase due to the events of " Revolutionary Live Which Heralds The Dawn " due to the reveal that Madara lied to Anzu about being her childhood friend^note He did meet her as a child, but they only played together a little as kids, revealing they weren't as close as he made it seem. ,in order to get closer to Trickstar as a way to manipulate the rebellion and punish Eichi and Keito for what they'd done during the "War". While some fans like where Akira is going with Madara's development as a character, saying that it's in character due to his status as the game's Anti-Hero and that it gives way for him to become more interesting and shows how much he developed later in the game's year ( as shown in 2017's event ), some others are either shocked, disappointed or feel betrayed. Many of the fans on the positive side of this say that this had been foreshadowed since he was first implemented into the game and that the fandom should have seen it coming while others claim that it is out of the blue and a result of bad writing for the sake of Angst. The Eastern fanbase is less split on this, however, with some even saying this reveal made them understand/like Madara more. Interestingly, it even seemed to boost the interest in Madara/Anzu in that fanbase. Reminisce* Ryusei Bonfire, an event focusing on his past as a Ryuseitai member and the reason for Kanata’s dislike of him, further boosted interest in him as a character due to his Dark and Troubled Past further unraveling.
  • Rinne Amagi was this right out of the gate due to his actions in the main story as well as across events. Players will either love him or hate him.
  • Mayoi Ayase was this before he was even implemented into the game when his profile was revealed, and the hatred surrounding his character only piled on afterward. He’s perhaps the second most controversial character of the two new units introduced in Ensemble Stars!! after Rinne. His obsession with anything innocent and child-like (See any young-looking member of the cast), and his habit of drugging them just to get close to them, among other very questionable things, has many fans view him less as a Comedic Shotacon and more as a creep whose trauma doesn’t excuse his actions. Those who like him tend to say he wants to get better, knowing his fascination is wrong and it’s too soon in his character arc to judge him without knowing if he’ll actually change before the presumed yearly loop. They also note that he doesn’t truly qualify as a pedophile, due to the boys being only a year or so younger than him and he’s legally still considered a “child” himself due to being 17 years old (Or 18 depending on whether his birthday had passed).
• Broken Base:
  • The anime is met with a doubtful reception. Some think that it'll end up like other shows meant for girls adapted from games such as Uta No Prince-sama, some are afraid to how the anime's adaptation will affect the competition in-game, and others welcomed it. This gets even more divisive with the anime being delayed to an indefinite time with a group protesting and another group losing hope that the anime will even air. And with the announcement that Last Period and Merc Storia, two fellow Happy Elements games, would get their adaptations aired first instead of EnStars, most players lost hope at the thought of the anime getting aired at all. This was mitigated somewhat in Spring 2018, where news for the project and an actual site pointed to a 2019 release.
  • Before it was fixed, the Encore lives addition had the points Nerf-ed down and harder to gain, gaining the ire of players. With some simply think it makes sense since it'll look less threatening to new players. This was later fixed, but some players are not pleased.
  • Trickstar winning the MV making poll to the west. They call it hax and blame the players voting for Trickstar as fake fans. The other side of the fandom along with the Asian play-base are accepting of the results.
  • The Hospital chapter, full stop. Half of the fans were pissed off at how most of the students had "overreacted" to Anzu being hospitalized and how she didn't deserve to hoard the boys attention like that. The other half accepted it, acknowledging that the Anzu-centered episodes had been few in the months leading up to the event and that the fact that her constant overworking would end up bad for her had been foreshadowing in earlier episodes. To the point that the "Anzu Discourse" became a trending topic in the Stars! fandom when the episode came.
  • Double Face as a unit, especially among fans of Mikejima Madara. A lot of fans dislike the unit as it has the characters focus more on being Amateur Sleuth's rather than behaving more like proper idols, and has all but outright replaced Madara's previous unit MaM from a story, interface and almost from a song perspective, as since the launch of Ensemble Stars!! MaM hadn't gotten any proper events or songs until "Handcraft" was released on Double Faces second unit album. As well, when it comes to promotional material, Double Face is almost always promoted first over MaM, despite MaM being Madara's "Front-Face" unit. Some have also complained that the unit unfairly benefits Kouhaku, as he's allowed to get songs and focus in both his original unit CrazyB and Double Face due to his operating in both at the same time, while Madara is rarely shown doing activities as MaM. The fact that the story and even Madara himself have implied that working as Double Face suits him better than the work he does as MaM has not gone over with fans that prefer him as a sparkling idol. On the other side, there are some that like Double Face due to Madara and Kouhaku's dynamics with each other, as well as their songs, but agree that there's still some unfair bias in favor of Double Face over MaM since the unit was introduced, and feel like it defeats the purpose of Madara being the only solo unit.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The members of Double Face reveal. When the silhouettes leaked in late 2019, it had already been speculated that the taller figure was Madara Mikejima due to the characters uniquely messy hair matching up. However, fans at the time were left to assume that they had to be a new character as there hadn’t been any newly introduced permanent units that consisted of pre-existing characters. And the speculation went on for a while, until the Kohaku Oukawa was introduced in Ensemble Stars!!, with his hair and physic matching up with the smaller figure. While Madara confirmed his role in the new unit in the event Learning from the Past, he didn’t mention Kohaku by name and merely hinted at him instead even though most observant fans already knew. By the time the official reveal for the characters came out in July 2020, fans weren’t surprised but that didn’t stop the hype for the new unit and their stylish MV anyway.
• Continuity Lockout: The main scenario and character side stories in Ensemble Stars!! requires players to at least have read the stories from the original Ensemble Stars! (be it event, gacha or the main scenario) to understand several of the references that serve as Call Backs to the original and the Character Development that the original cast had gone through. While this isn't a problem for longtime players before the renewal, newer players don't have the same luck. This is even more so for Music-only players as it only has the new main scenario in Ensemble Stars!!. While the game does summarize things that happened in the main scenario of the original game, these fans are essentially forced to download the Basic version of the game to access the original game's scenario.
  • Double Face as a unit is looking to be this for new players that haven’t played the units debut event or the event that immediately follows time-line wise, as its currently the only permanent unit to not be introduced in the main story. The fact that both characters starter cards bloom as their respective other unit costumes rather than their Double Face outfits certainly will add to the confusion.
  • The first film, Road to Show, references game events ("Midnight Butlers", "La Mort", the main story to Ensemble Stars!!) and basically assumes you've played the game before.
• Continuity Snarl: The sheer amount of characters, each with their own individual stories, made this trope inevitable, especially when considering the "War". Souma in particular is definitely the worst off in terms of story: for years, Akatsuki stories were written as though he wasn't involved in the "War" and was always treated well by his teammates. This was always hard to justify (and seemed to be contradicted by implications that Kanata resented him in some way), but Akira still dug in his heels, repeatedly retconning the date of his joining Akatsuki to try and keep him uninvolved, and straight up never bringing him up at all in Four Beasts of Fistfighting, even in the modern day scenes, despite that event giving integral Akatsuki lore. In the end, Akira finally gave in on Ryuusei Bonfire, showing how Souma was (unwillingly) involved in Kanata's execution and was treated terribly by Keito in the process. Later in the year he also Orwellian Retconed a scene from Shinsengumi to take place in early summer rather than later spring to make things somewhat consistent, but left completely untouched were scenes in which Keito and Kuro acted like it was an act of kindness to let Souma join Akatsuki, with Kuro even explicitly stating that Keito feels guilty towards him but not Souma, all of which now makes them seem callous about all of the stuff they put Souma through. The Natsume substory, in which Souma claimed that Akatsuki never did anything wrong because the "War" was solely put on by the Student Council, only adds more fuel to this snarl. However, as the timeline moved on soon after this event, it's unclear if we'll ever find out if these things were retconned or Akatsuki is actually just ridiculously in denial about those events. Word of God seems to be fully aware of this as well as their other various Retcons if their 4GAMER interview is any indication. They call Ensemble Stars!! an unplanned fan-fiction.
• Difficulty Spike: Compared to Basic, which retains the same gameplay and point requirements for 5-stars as the original game, Music!! is this. Event 5-stars have a much higher point requirement, and more often than not require the player to spend dia and/or money in order to get the 5-star before the event is over, regardless of their teams strength. This mostly applies to unit song events as Tour events are much more forgiving. With strong teams and some effort, players can potentially net a free copy of the event 4 and 5-star of their choosing.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Eichi. He can be sympathetic and does show remorse for his actions, but that's ignoring the plethora of crap he's poured onto the other characters, during and after the "War".

E-H

• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The story is generally agreed to be more interesting than the game system.
  • With the release of Ensemble Stars!! Music, a rhythm game app for the game, fans have found it easier to enjoy the game and the story. In other cases, it’s the reverse now with those who don’t care for the story saying to skip the story and enjoy the rhythm game.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • If there's a unit popularity poll going on any website (from either eastern on western fandom), you can expect either UNDEAD or Knights, or even both to be at least in the top 3 due to their concept and group dynamics attracting many fans. As a direct consequence, events focused on these two units are also widely considered a battlefield that newbies and free-to-play players should really think twice before trying to get ranking prizes out of it.
    • There was recently a poll in the Chinese version to determine the most popular unit, and UNDEAD straight out demolished the other competitors. Even Knights, the runner up, still lost by a big margin.
  • Separately from UNDEAD, Rei Sakuma is incredibly popular, being the most popular member of the UNDEAD unit and one of the most beloved characters from the franchise. He's ranked high in various popularity polls, much to the dismay of his detractors, even outranking the ever popular Leo Tsukinaga at times.
  • Subaru's pet dog, Daikichi. Heck, even Koga's pet dog, Leon is popular enough along with Rei's own.
  • Leo immediately rose to popularity after his introduction as Knights's leader, even before he actually appeared in the game. While it was certainly helped by the fact that he was one of the first boys to be introduced in the "new batch" of characters (which certified him of getting the spotlight), he is also popular for the Continuity Nod to Engirls due to the confirmation that he is the older brother of Tsukinaga Ruka from said game, and as such, his popularity is still going strong to this day.
  • In a particularly interesting case, Shu's doll Mademoiselle. No, really. Her voice and personality are basically a creation of Shu, but because she is a lot friendlier and softer than Shu himself (despite the fact that Mademoiselle is hinted sometimes to be a way of him to express what he actually feels, or at the very least a manner of him to convey some of his thoughts without worrying about interacting directly with people), the fans quickly took a liking to her.
  • When Valkyrie was first released, it took a long time for Shu to become tolerated among some groups of fans, while Mika was a dear and welcomed by the majority of the fans for his design and adorkable-ness.
  • Ryuuseitai is quite popular and well loved enough by fans to become the third most popular unit due to their unique concept of being a Sentai inspired Idol group and the quirky, mismatched group members. It's saying something when the chart of the first week sales of their unit song album actually beat UNDEAD and Knights's. And as of December 2016, they join Knights and UNDEAD as the three big Ensemble Dark Horse units.
    • Separately from the Ryuseitai, similarly to how Rei is from UNDEAD, on his own Chiaki is the most popular character from his unit. Though the other members of Ryuseitai have varying claims to popularity on their own depending on the circles, Chiaki stands out by being almost universally liked by everyone, even people who don't care for Ryuseitai as a unit overall.
  • If it’s possible for there to be an Ensemble Darkhorse unit within a unit, then Eve is definitely that. While Eden has its own claim to popularity, it’s been made very clear over the years since their introduction that this is primarily owed to Jun and Hiyori, two extremely popular characters who only became more popular due to how scarcely they originally appeared in the story before Ensemble Stars!!
  • The 3rd year students in general were the most popular of all the characters classes due to the third years being perceived to have the most depth during the early days of the game, being the driving forces of many events, as well as the consistently well received repayment festival events focusing on them.
  • The Knight Killers, a group that Leo assembled to duel against the current Knights in the King's Horseback Ride event. The uncanny combination of the members had fans wishing to see more of them to a point that they're the one temporary unit that got some songs about them.
• Epileptic Trees: Any discussion of the "war" before the start of the game will bring up a lot of theories, especially in regards to how some characters were before Ensemble Stars!.
  • In Japan, Chiaki being the previous member of fine due to the fact that Eichi calls Chiaki by his first name and coincidentally, Chiaki is of the same height as Yuzuru. It was to the point that fanart of Chiaki in fine's uniform started growing. This gets debunked when Supernova came by. And even more so when Magician Assembles came by, revealing that it was Tsumugi who was a former member of fine along with another two members, Hiyori who moved to Yumenosaki's rival school, and Nagisa whi also moved out to another idol school. Plus the fact that fine was and currently, a four member-ed unit.
  • When the fourth novel was teased by Akira that there will be a meeting of Valkyrie with a certain someone in the side story, many fans thought it was Leo's sister, Ruka. Ignoring that at that time, Ruka is a third year in middle school which brought theories that it's more likely to be Anzu's friends. Which is slightly confirmed with the hint that the narrator of that side story is Yakumo Chizuru.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Labelling the game as an otome or a fujo game for some western fans. While it does pander to both audiences, it’s made fairly clear that the Ship Tease isn’t really going to go anywhere and it’s not the main focus of the game.
  • Depending on who you ask, saying the game isn’t intended for minors to play is this whether it’s true or not. This debate has been a sore spot in the western fandom for a long time, as those who believe that the target demographic is minors base this assumption on the fact that the characters were originally in a high school setting, all the mature, family-unfriendly themes that existed before the game was officially bumped up to a 17+ rating in the Appstore be damned.
• Fandom Rivalry: As a male idol game, EnStars has very heavy competition with IDOLiSH7 due to being on the same platforms as well. And just as a mobile game, with A3. It also has one with Granblue Fantasy.
  • Has a long established one with THE iDOLM@STER: SideM due to both being male idol games and due to the perception that Stars! ripped off of SideM, starting with the Aoi twin drama. ^note  See Hilarious in Hindsight While it began to die down over the years, Ensemble Stars!! rebooting its games on the anniversary of SideM^note  Stars!! Music was supposed to be released on March 9th but due to unspecified reasons with Apple App Store, they had to push back the release which unfortunately coincided with SideM's anniversary day, March 15th as well as releasing a subunit by the name of Altessimo^note  Unfortunately, they share the name with a duo unit in SideM that had been established 6 years prior. As of 9/8/2020, Happy Elements has adjusted the unit name to Artissimo, further angered the fans, who accused Happy Elements of being greedy and deliberately trying to step on the toes of SideM. It doesn't help that one of the later units, C.FIRST, was accused of ripping off of Enstars instead.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Some fans also used the in-series nicknames to refer to the characters:
    • Makoto is affectionately called Yuu-kun by the fandom.
    • Wataru is often called Six Fingers by the fans. See Memetic Mutation for why.
    • "Yanhomo" for Izumi, due to his extreme interest in Makoto. People in some circles also call him "Izoom" or something similar.
    • "Galge (Girl game) Protag" for Mao to some people, due to his Nice Guy personality and being very reliable.
    • It's quiet common to associate Mika with Odd-san or Peppers from NekoAtsume, to the point where some referred to Mika as Peppers as an Affectionate Nickname.
    • Arashi is fondly called variations of "Onee-chan", since that's what she asks you to call her in-game.
    • Hajime is called "Shinonon" by the fandom.
    • "Grandpa" for Rei, since he talks like an old man.
    • Some fans refer to Eichi as Satan due to some of his very questionable actions.
    • Since Nazuna asks everyone to call him "nii-chan" in game, it's common for people to call him that or even some other variant of it (such as "Nazu-nii").
    • Madara is often called "Mama" or "Mikejimama" by the fandom due to that being his In-Series Nickname.
  • The King's Horseback Ride event is most commonly called the "Judgement event" by fans. There had been events which are known simply for the live that takes place in the story or, in a live unrelated event, the story (Autumn School Trip has been called "Onsen event" by fans).
  • Ensemble Stars!! is often called Ensemble Stars 2 for some fans to avoid confusion between Ensemble Stars! and Ensemble Stars!!
• Fanon:
  • Given Anzu's revealed backstory and family, some people decided to work out when the game happens between it and Ensemble Girls!. The current order is: Anzu gets kicked out of Kimisaki ^note There are no mentions of male students-> EnStars^note Anzu has transferred to Yumenosaki, Anzu's brother attends General course -> EnGirls^note Brother becomes first male student at Kimisaki, Anzu is mentioned by Kimisaki girls as well as a 3rd-year Suzu = EnStars!!^note Starts a year after the original game, placing it at around the same time as EnGirls=] -> EnGirls Memories^note Kimisaki cast has graduated
  • While Word of God states that Anzu's character can be however one wish to interpret her to be, many players and fans prefer to follow and see Akira's version of Anzu as the "canon" Anzu due to the many Continuity Nods that are in place with the sister series, Engirls and it gives Anzu a more fleshed out character and depth beyond being a Player Character insert.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Enough to warrant its own page due to the massive size of the cast and the dynamics between them.
• Friendly Fandoms: With its sister game, Ensemble Girls!. Rarely do you see one game mentioned without the other. It's common to see fanart of the Tsukinaga siblings together, Expies and similarly-themed students hanging out, or Anzu reconnecting with her old friends and making up for lost time with the Transfer Student.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Eichi/Madara. Their interactions from the concerto story are full of passive aggression ending with Madara threatening Eichi should he ever hurt Leo again. Naturally, some fans took to that and ship them together as a result.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Eichi is a very popular character in China. He does share the same appeal to Japanese and Western fans, but not to the extent China has for him.
  • In a similar vein, Trickstar and fine are much more popular in China than they are in Japan or in the west.
  • Tetora is beloved by the Korean fandom. Given that a majority of the outraged reactions of the Memetic Mutation of "Where is Nagumo Tetora?" are from Korean fans.
  • While Madara's popularity is moderate in the west and in Japan, he seems to have a significantly bigger following among the Korean fanbase.
  • The game itself has gained a cult following in the west, Especially on Twitter.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Remember all those times Leo kept composing in random places and annoying the heck out of everyone with it? Or calling himself the "Naked King"? "Checkmate" reveals that after Knight's fall from grace in the past, he truly believes that composing is all he can do as an idol. And the Naked King is a reference to the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes. Like the emperor of the story, Leo was tricked by Eichi, who organized many Dream-Fes with people outside of the school voting for Knights. After some weeks of success, Eichi made Dream-Fes inside the school, therefore making the loser units will vote down for them. Naked King indeed....
  • Considering how the Ensemble Girls! protagonist doesn't like talking about his sister, it's no wonder considering she's Anzu. The Girls! characters constantly compare him to her, and given that we see just how influential she is in this game, it's not without some reason he feels he's stuck in her shadow. It goes into a bit of Harsher in Hindsight when the game he stars in ends up falling victim to the same trope amongst players comparing it to Stars!, and the game itself ended up being retired before he even got a proper name, so the closest thing to a name he can be referred to (aside from "Transfer-kun") is "Anzu's Brother".
  • Natsume, in his side story mentioned Anzu helping Trickstar mostly out of pity and tell her to run away while she still could. For those who played Ensemble Girls!, it can be seen as this as Anzu lost too many due to her and her friends's rebellion against Kimisaki's strict rules failing and eventually ran away, moving to Yumenosaki as a result. This doubled as a Player Punch to some, given that several players would have thought the same as Anzu at first with them only sympathizing Trickstar's plight and liking a different unit altogether.
  • Anzu's fear of Eichi, while a bit justified, gets a harsh hindsight because in Ensemble Girls!, one of the people who got Anzu to leave was Reika, the student council president during Anzu's time as a first year in her old school and Sakura, a middle school acquaintance of hers, whom she thought as a friend at first, sold her out to the student council. It doesn't help that Eichi resembles Reika in many ways.
    • In a lesser extent, Anzu running a way from Keito as well. Since Keito's position reminded her of Sakura, who sold her out to Reika.
  • Arashi's Starlight Festival Event CG. Many comment on the beauty but then it is revealed in the event story that Arashi is actually praying over a cenotaph for the Yumenosaki students who were Driven to Suicide due to having their dreams crushed once in the past. While it's unknown if some of those students are those whose dreams were crushed by Eichi during his actions of the "War", it still made the context of Arashi's unbloomed card really murky. This gets worse when later chapters of the event reveals that one of the students who committed suicide was a close friend of Arashi.
    • To drive the knife even further, this is also a case of Truth in Television because Japan is a country with a high suicide rate.
  • Anzu's constant rebuffing of Kaoru's attention, which other students and even players mock him for. There's also him saying he sees Anzu as a mother-figure after saying he uses that to get girls to break up with him. Originally a less-developed character compared to others, more recent stories reveal more of his backstory and motivations, which cast him in a much more sympathetic, if not heartbreaking light. Later stories reveal that Kaoru was especially close to his mother, who presumably died from illness or overwork. It's this reason that he was worries for Anzu's health because he sees his mother in her, and takes her hospitalization in Wishing Live rather hard. His difficult home life where he has a strained relationship with his father and feels indebted but useless to his older siblings doesn't help matters.
  • Ryuusei Hanabi throws a very dark shadow over Keito and Kuro's relationship with Souma, after they were previously treated as warm and loving father figures who always did their best for him. Knowing that they not only exploited him despite knowing that he was a sweet kid who trusted and loved them, but also that when he rightfully called them out on their plans, Keito yelled at him, calling him useless and telling him he was only ever a tool for them, and expelled him from the unit, leaving him in tears, it's clear that Souma's excessive dependence on Keito was his fault from the beginning, and his exaggerated Suicide as Comedy act whenever he feels like he failed Keito even slightly feels less like a wacky overreaction and more like an understandable response to that mistreatment. This story makes it very clear that as heartwarming as it is that Souma was able to redeem Akatsuki, staying in it was very bad for him, putting him into an unhealthy dynamic with Keito that he and Kuro admit in Repayment Fes they were never able to fix, and leaving a permanent stain on his relationship not only with Kanata who he loved so strongly, but basically everyone else in the cast by aligning him with the Student Council. And just in case all of that wasn't bad enough, the reference to the Kanzaki cult implies that this isn't the first time he's been groomed like that, either.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Anzu's frequent attempts to befriend and help Mika, despite his (rather poor) attempts to drive her away, gets justified when you realize that Mika is a Distaff Counterpart of Suzu Kuromori from Ensemble Girls!. She was Anzu's best friend before she moved to Yumenosaki academy and just like Mika, she was a Shrinking Violet with a Freakiness Shame concerning her heterochromia and revered their best friend like a god (Shu for Mika, Anzu for Suzu).
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • THE iDOLM@STER: SideM, another mobile game starring male idols, has another set of orange-haired teenage twins with the surname of Aoi in a two-sibling unit, just like Yuta and Hinata. What's more, Yusuke and Yuta even have their names start out the same, forming a "Double-Yu" together, while Yusuke and Kyousuke have "W" as their unit name.
  • "Dream Festival" as an idol based event? Now, why does that sound familiar?
  • Remember the early jokes where Hokuto and Subaru are mistaken as Kageyama and Hinata and joked that they become idols? Now that the actual voice actors of Kageyama and Hinata (Kaito Ishikawa and Ayumu Murase respectively) joined the game as different characters in Ensemble Stars ^note  Ishikawa is cast as Tsumugi while Murase is cast as Tori., both Kageyama and Hinata literally did become idols!
  • There were many Pixiv fanfictions about Anzu getting a part-time job as a maid and working for the rich idols (Tsukasa and Eichi being the most frequent targets). Then "Mine Lady" happened, with Anzu getting a part-time job as a servant....working for Tori.
    • It's hinted that "Mine Lady" is a Take That! to the sheer amount of these fanfics. Instead of a shipping moment, we have Tori's sister (and Yuzuru) pulling pranks and making Anzu take the fall for them all.
  • In "Doggy Park Picnic", Yuzuru compares Anzu to a maid, but backs off believing he's dispespecting her. In "Mine Lady" Anzu does work as a maid. Worse, it was Yuzuru's idea.
  • When Anzu meets Mika for the first time she asks him if he has any sisters (due to his uncanny resemblance to Suzu), to which he denies. Mika meets Suzu in "Milky Way" and jokes how she might be "my sister separated from birth". The graduation episode of Ensemble Girls! reveal that Suzu found out she was adopted and that she indeed was separated at birth from her brother....who's none other than Mika.
  • Remember all those Mom jokes about Madara? "Purple Wisterias of May" reveals his nickname is Mama.
  • A few years after his role as Leo, Shintarō Asanuma voices Mad Trigger Crew's leader Aohitsugi Samatoki in Hypnosis Mic, who has a sister he cares about on an equal level as Leo did. Even before that, Asanuma also voiced Ryan from Granblue Fantasy, who loves his sister very much.
• Ho Yay: Now with its own page.
• Iron Woobie: After remaining a mystery for years since his release, once his story is out in the open, Madara Mikejima is revealed to be this. His story seems to become worse the more that's revealed about it, but for some hints at how fucked up his story is he was born into a religious cult that worshipped his childhood friend Kanata, who Madara was assigned to be friends with so he could grow up to essentially become his bodyguard. His parents are implied to be abusive to some degree, which is hinted at through some of Madara's dialogue (For example, he said that his mother uses force), and are seemingly confirmed to be in Ensemble Stars!! when they completely cut him off after he abolishes the cult to free Kanata from his role as "God". His sister is sickly and wheelchair-bound, and he has to find a way to earn his role back from his parents so they don't kill her in an attempt to make her a replacement for him. Kanata, who he worked so hard to free from his role, treats him coldly for reasons based on Kanata's insecurities, and even after finding out that Madara does care for him, Kanata's still mean to him. He pretty much loses his ability to operate as a normal idol in Ensemble Stars!! after being cut off by his parents and having his job opportunities limited since solo idols are being gradually phased out of the industry (which was a plot point made up for Ensemble Stars!! and didn't exist in the original game)... and that's not even all of it. He's probably one of the best examples of a Stepford Smiler in the game.

I-P

• I Knew It!: Some fans guessed correctly that Tsumugi is an ex-member of fine.
  • Fans who guessed that Madara lied about Anzu being his Childhood Friend were correct, or at least partially, as there was a bit of truth to the statement with lies built around it. Though it’s not as if the story was subtle in their implication that he was lying.
  • Many people guessed that the new unit Double Face would consist of Madara Mikejima and Kohaku Oukawa. The silhouettes very blatantly looking like the characters didn’t help much.
• Incest Yay Shipping:
  • Rei x Ritsu, AKA Sakumacest, is fairly popular in the fandom both overseas and in the west. That said, it's still No Yay for a number of people to the point where people who dislike it give Happy Elements flack anytime it seems like they're teasing it in the canon material.
  • A few people have also taken to shipping Kohaku with Tsukasa if they’re not shipping him with his fellow Crazy B members, Aira, or Madara Mikejima. This is despite the fact that they’re stated to be cousins.
  • Hiiro has been shipped with his older brother.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Anzu has been shipped with everyone of the cast (sans the teachers due to the age difference... mostly). With the addition of Continuity Nod (mentioned in the main page), she is also shipped with the third years from Ensemble Girls!.
  • Rei and Chiaki are also this, though their most popular ships are the ones with members from their respective units.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: It's hard to talk about anything relating to Anzu and her life before going to Yumenosaki without mentioning her role in the Girls! prequel novels.

• Memetic Loser: In 90% of hetero fics, Kaoru is portrayed as the one who has the least chances to hook up with Anzu and mostly serves as a friendzoned Butt-Monkey.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Hinata and Kageyama quit volleyball to become idols" was an early meme (as in, right after the game was released and the characters were introduced) that caught on thanks to the strong physical resemblance and somewhat similar dynamic Subaru and Hokuto bear to the aforementioned sport manga characters.
    • Now Hilarious in Hindsight as the actual voice actors of Hinata and Kageyama now join the cast.
  • Six fingers^note There was a mistake by the artist in some of Wataru's CG's which made it look as if Wataru had six fingers. It was corrected much later but the joke still stands in the fandom. If you're curious, here it is◊.
  • 5 star Kaoru^note  Kaoru has so been Out of Focus as a 4-5 starred rank card since the Halloween 2015 (Café UNDEAD) event that Japanese fanartists started to draw fanmade 5 star Kaoru cards. (This has since changed; late 2016's Hot Holiday Party gave him a rank 5 star card.)
    • A Leo version came out a day after the Thief Vs. Detective event had started.
    • Now it became a meme for artist to draw fan-made 5 star cards. Seeing that both Leo and Kaoru now received new 5 star cards.
  • It's quiet common to see many photoshop-ed renders of the cards in hilarious situations in the Japanese fandom. Especially twitter.
  • "Event name" is a bloodbath.^note  The trend started from the 2015 Judgement event which had been dubbed as such due to how many people fighting to stay in rank for Tsukasa's card (Which was a ranking reward). It's so bad that even Tsukasa's own seiyuu couldn't obtain the card. And the term had since been used for any event where a member of an Ensemble Dark Horse unit and/or character is a ranking reward, rather than a point reward. Knights and UNDEAD got hit with this term the hardest due to being the biggest Ensemble Dark Horse unit; however, Ryuuseitai has recently edged out UNDEAD. Two events in late 2016 broke Judgement's cutoff back to back: Scroll of the Elements (rank Shinobu of Ryuuseitai) and Starlight Festival (rank Arashi of Knights), with the latter beating the former by almost 1,000,000 points.
  • Enstars is not a BL Game.^note  Due to the high amount of hinting between the boys of this game, often people will post this meme when someone does something especially suggestive.
  • Jokes about Tsumugi secretly being Midorima started flying around as soon as the new unit Switch was revealed. ^note Tsumugi likes fortune telling just like Midorima.
  • Subaru recently had been so Out of Focus from events with close to no A Day in the Limelight moments in events that some joked about him being missing and not remembering who he is. Though this is now a Discredited Meme as Subaru has recently returned in the Night Sky's Rockin' Star event.
  • Subaru-sama^note  In the Japanese fandom, fans noted how uncharacteristically attractive he looked in his Night Sky's Rockin' Star event card compared to how he's just the Genki Boy in other cards, leading to many people referring to him as this. The hashtag "Subaru-Sama" even trended worldwide on twitter when the card was revealed.
  • Angst Christmas/ Angst festivities^note  Let's just say that the holidays aren't always the best times of year for the Enstars cast. The Christmas event stories had cases of Darker and Edgier, and it really shows in the Starlight Festival event with Arashi visiting a cenotaph. And before that there's the angst of Hinata and Yuuta's relationship in the 2015 Christmas Event. Then the white day commemorating event shows more angst and Ryuuseitai getting into a fight for the preview of the Baton Pass! Repayment Festival of Tears and Bonds" event, and Hinata implicitly deciding to off himself and Yuuta settling into thinking he's the inferior twin during Setsubun.
  • Tsumugi is making some fucking noise in Miami^note  A meme started from a moment after Switch's unit album comes out and soon followed with a fanart. Now people joke about this being the reason why Tsumugi is missing and Out of Focus.
  • WHERE IS NAGUMO TETORA/AOBA TSUMUGI?^note  Their absence of 4 star and/or 5 star rarity cards in either event or gacha scout has brought jokes and outraged reactions from fans who think Happy Elements forgot about them. It is now a Discredited Meme due to the two aforementioned characters officially getting a new card in scout and event for Tsumugi.
  • It didn't take long for western fans to joke Mikejima Madara's unit with the mom joke because that's how his unit MaM is pronounced as in Japanese ^note The unit is spelled マム in Japanese and it sounded alike to mom, something that is not lost on many western players..
  • "So what, Eichi."^note  From a funny exchange in one story: "It's going to be Christmas soon, Keito." "So what, Eichi." It's so hilariously blunt and cold it's quoted often.
  • "Hey, everyone! My name is Kaoru Hakaze. I was born November third? And I'm - I'm the student of uhhh... Yumenosakigakuen high school! I'm a senior student right there, and my blood type is B, Aaaand my class - my class is 3-A. ...that's pretty much it, heh. Thank you."^note From a video of Kaoru's voice actor, who grew up partially in California and is fluent in English, introducing himself in-character in English.
  • Who is Maaya Sakamoto? ^note This reaction earlier came from a portion of Ensemble Star fans who think and believed that Maaya Sakamoto is a new voice actor when she is actually a veteran voice actress. Causing many others to joke and troll about it, to a point that it's trending in twitter.
• Misblamed:
  • Anzu is usually cited by fans of Knights as the reason Knights will break up in the future after Leo decided to teach her to compose in the end of the Moonlight Opera event. In reality, Leo mentioned long back that he had planned on retiring from being an idol in the 2015 Halloween event, since he's joining the remaining third years for graduation, along with Izumi. That would give him little time left to support Knights, and he trusts Anzu enough to take care of the rest. And said group also ignored that without Anzu, Leo wouldn't have been found in the first place nor would Knights be a tight-knit unit since she is one of the driving forces that helps bring Knights together besides Tsukasa. Said scene is now Retcon'ed by Happy Elements for consistency with stories that come after that event, but well...
  • The main scenario writer, Akira, is always the primary target for criticism when it comes to fans expressing their disapproval of the direction the story is going. While some of it is justified, as he is the main scenario writer, fans often ignore the fact that he’s not the only writer for Ensemble Stars!!, as the game has brought on more and more writers to tackle stories over the years.
• More Popular Spin-Off: Originally conceived as the Josei-targeted, Distaff Counterpart, Prequel game (Formerly, before Ensemble Stars!! came out and muddled everything) to Happy Elements' now defunct Ensemble Girls! mobile game, it quickly became infinitely more successful than Ensemble Girls! had been in its run to the point where most Stars! players can go their entire playthrough without even knowing that Ensemble Girls! exists. While Stars! does share some story connections with Girls! such as Leo, Mika and Anzu having siblings that exist there and the protagonist previously attending the school, they're all fairly shallow and easily waved off, considering that the sibling aspect is unimportant to either story, merely serving as little more than a bit of Crossover trivia for the characters instead. In the case of the protagonist, it serves as an explanation for her characterization in Ensemble Stars!, however being that she's otherwise a simple Stock Shoujo Heroine, most fans wouldn't think there would be any further depth to her characterization anyway.
• Narm Charm: The level of severity the story places being an idol with, along with the game's dark writing in general, is part of the reason why Ensemble Stars had become so popular in the first place and has maintained its popularity even as other male character-centric idol games have come and gone.
  • The music video for the Shuffle event song "Fist of Soul", which ditches the usual idol dancing on a stage for fight scenes straight out of a shonen Anime, complete with special effects. It looks goofy, perhaps intentionally, which makes it so humorous to watch.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Some fans don't see and/or refuse to see Tori as anything but a spoiled Bratty Half-Pint.
  • Also, Eichi betraying Tsumugi in Magicians Assemble.
  • Yuzuru’s out of character moment in Mine Lady.
  • Hiyori threatening to rip off Anzu's face.
  • Shu is seen by some fans as cruel and abusive after reading what he does in Marionette to Nazuna, and refuses to see him as anything else even when he is shown to deeply regret his actions in Marionette and is trying to change for the better, and that despite what he did to Nazuna, he does truly care for him, going as far as participating in a dreamfes to please Eichi so he can protect Nazuna and avoids Nazuna in fear that he will say words that will hurt Nazuna.
  • The Reveal that Madara was just pretending to be friends with Anzu for the sake of his revenge towards Eichi, especially for how he critized Eichi manipulating Leo in the past when he manipulated Anzu in a similar way. Even though Madara felt bad for it afterwards, some fans continue to see Madara in a negative light. This has more or less died down in the recent years.
  • A meta example, but the Western fanbases habit of starting discourse where certain characters or stories are involved. Even on a day when nothing's going on, you'll see people claim that Ensemble Stars! discourse is always going on or people bringing up old discourse (which usually in turn just stirs up the fandom).
• Pandering to the Base: Happy Elements hasn't exactly been subtle about their taken notice of their Fujoshi fanbase, with the Ho Yay between the boys being cranked up over the years to the point where one might even believe that some of these boys are actually in love with each other, despite this implication not leading anywhere for obvious reasons.
• No Yay: Any ship that involves incest is seen as this in the western fanbase. Overseas, they’re more lax and ships like that are fairly popular, particularly Sakumacest which is Rei/Ritsu.
  • In the western fanbase, Eichi/anyone he’s “abused” are looked down upon. Particularly Eichi/Leo.
  • Again in the west, shipping any older character with a younger character is this, regardless of how small the age gap between the characters may be.
• Periphery Demographic: From the very beginning, Word of God claimed that Ensemble Stars! was conceived to be a Josei-targeted version of Ensemble Girls! that also didn't want to be any usual romance-oriented Josei story. Because of this, Word of God explained that the main story ended up being a shounen story with Josei elements blended in. That said, that didn't stop fans of the Otome and Boys' Love genres from becoming interested in the story due to the mass amounts of Ho Yay between a majority of the cast, and the Ship Tease between the protagonist and the boys.

R-W

• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • fine in general was not a very popular unit in the fandom due to their role as antagonists in the main story (arguably due to the very light gray morality), but the future characterization and development of fine members saved them from being actual scrappies to the fandom.
  • Shu was initially hated by Ra*bits fans, because of his Bad Boss behavior towards Nazuna (being like this towards Mika didn't exactly help as well, even if the latter doesn't particularly minds it) but his complex characterization as well as Character Development eventually redeemed in the eyes of most Ra*bits fans.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Eichi is an interesting case to say the least, as fans have given him all kinds of treatment on the broad spectrum of both this trope and Draco in Leather Pants. Granted, he isn't exactly a saint and he does have his Manipulative Bastard and Well-Intentioned Extremist moments. Many fanworks, however, only focus on his constant scheming as his sole defining trait, portraying Eichi as an abusive boyfriend / Yandere who is backstabbing and abusing (sometimes even raping) Anzu or any of the boys to Moral Event Horizon levels. These fics completely ignore the modern day stories that show him being Affably Evil or at least relatively friendly with his enemies, and remorseful for all the ill he's done.
  • Ritsu’s selfish and entitled behavior is exaggerated up to eleven in fanworks. Either that or his liking for drinking Anzu's blood is taken up to eleven. Or he's portrayed as a covert pervert. Yes, even in shipping fics.
  • Yuzuru. Although he can be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, he still is a mature, reliable guy devoted to his master Tori and one of the few who’s kind to Anzu since the beginning. Yet (after Yumenosaki Circus and Mine Lady) fans make him out to be as clingy and a closet sadist. However, many people actually liked Yuzuru in the aforementioned events (in part thanks to his BDSM outfit) and praised how Yuzuru was becoming "bolder".
• Sequel Displacement: For some western fans, not many people know about Ensemble Girls!, given it hadn't been translated and was very small time for a mobile game. Given Anzu's backstory and confirmation as Angie, it's more Prequel Displacement.
• Scrappy Mechanic: What most critics complained about the game's system is that, regardless of the stories and characters, the game play is too simple and stays the same, which made it boring and mundane overtime. But the simplicity is what makes it very popular, especially to teenagers. Since it's not exactly a rhythm game and they can sneak playing it at school. As of May 14th, following the third year anniversary event, Ensemble stars will add new gameplay mechanics perhaps to make the game more enjoyable.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Due to the large cast and how event and gacha rotations work^note Normally characters in the same unit, social groups, or common connections appear in events or gacha at the same time and are more often than not the focus characters that get the most interactions among themselves. If it’s a large group of characters such as Ryuseitai, it leave very little room for other characters to interact with each other. And even if characters from other units are added, it’s still possible for them to only interact among themselves rather than with other characters that they have yet to be seen speaking to despite them being in the same event, there are still character combinations that have yet to be seen exchanging a word despite most of them being in the same school or even in the same class since the games release. That doesn’t stop fans from shipping every character combination possible though, if not simply because all of the characters went to the same school and thusly would have to have had interacted at some point. Ensemble Stars!! fuels this a bit more, as now there are now dorms that characters share with each other, giving more way to shipping head canons.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Hoo boy, yes. There are fans who fight over each other's ships, be it a Heterosexual or Ho Yay ship. Many of them are for rather... petty reasons, as is wont to do. Oddly enough, it's worse with fans in the west while this was more or less tame for fans in Asia. Values Dissonance is likely in play.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Almost no one expected Tsumugi to be an ex-member of fine. Leading to this reaction by a majority of the fandom.
  • The fans were shocked when Nazuna was revealed to be an ex-member of Valkyrie.
  • Or that Madara Mikejima was the former Ryusei Purple of Ryuseitai......and Anzu's childhood friend, no less.
  • The Starlight Festival revelations. We've heard about darker elements in the story before, but suicide?
  • And let's not forget Setsubun Festival, where it's implied that Hinata would have thrown himself off the school roof had Yuuta not interrupted him in time, among other things.
  • The graduation episode of Ensemble Girls! reveal that Mika was Suzu Kuromori's brother all along.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In Ensemble Stars!, the more popular units, such as knights, Ryuuseitai, or UNDEAD, would receive a disproportionate amount of focus in events, Scouts, special events etc. likely due to the amount of money they raked in because of the old ranking system. In Ensemble Stars!! with the old ranking system gone, this seems to have changed as units/offices move in rotation with each other with each unit being guaranteed at least two events (Tour, unit song) per year. The only outlier seems to be Shuffle events in which any characters can appear, but Word of God confirms these to be rare. Gacha appears to be more random, but also more fair as of September 2020 as units can appear together as gacha cards, but scouts are more often than not composed of random characters, particularly feature scouts. They also appear to be used to fill out the number of cards a character can receive with everyone receiving around the same amount around the same rarity.
• Sympathy for the Devil:
  • While Ra*Bits fans and Nazuna fans are not very happy with Shu, they do agree that what Eichi did to him during the Marionette's memories event story was cruel, some even sympathizing with him for it.
  • Eichi too has gained some sympathy from fans.
• Testosterone Brigade: While no where near the amount of female players Ensemble Stars!! Music has, there are a number of men that play the game as well despite it lacking any female characters outside of Anzu, who rarely shows up on screen.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The change from the cost of 10-rolls being 135 dia up to 350 dia upon the update to Ensemble Stars!! was not well received among fans due to how difficult it is to save up dia now, and how much longer it would take to save up multiple rolls. It's definitely not helped by the fact that dia is a requirement for events in Ensemble Stars!! Music, especially during unit songs events, so you're outta luck if you're a Free To Play player that wants to save for both gacha and events. The new system all but outright encourages the players to spend a lot of money.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Ritsu is meant to be portrayed as an antisocial Jerk with a Heart of Gold with a soft spot for his best friend Mao and a Dark and Troubled Past involving Eichi betraying Leo during the Five Oddballs incident and thus him leaving the Knights. But while the circumstances are genuinely tragic, it does little to garner any sympathy for him, especially with his horrendous treatment of his brother Rei. The reason why Ritsu resents him? Because Rei wasn’t there for him when he needed him during Knights’s downfall. Ignoring that Rei had other things to do at the moment (such as supporting his fellow Oddballs, dealing with Eichi changing the school’s methods and travelling to the Middle East to recruit Adonis). And Checkmate reveals he already resented his brother way before the Five Oddballs incident, as Ritsu hated being stuck on Rei's shadow.
• Unexpected Character: Needless to say no one expected Hatsune Miku of all characters to appear as a collaborative character in the third edition of the COVER SONG SERIES. The fact that her fellow Crypton synthesizers Kagamines Rin and Len accompany her made it all the more surprising.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Inverted case. Fans of Makoto generally agree that he looks better without his glasses on and wish he would have more artwork without them. It's a sentiment that Izumi and Subaru agree with in-universe, with Subaru being more lenient with it. It would seem that Happy Elements took notice of the fandoms preference, as he has plenty of cards where he has no glasses on, though most of his bloomed cards will have them anyway if the unbloomed doesn’t. This is ignoring the fact that Makoto with glasses on and him with them off look virtually the same, and he has plenty of good-looking or flattering cards where his glasses are still on.
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Rinne Amagi is hated by nearly every character he interacts with in-universe for his vulgar behavior, and he has a bad reputation with the in-game fanbases because of his actions during the main story. Out of the game universe, however, he is unrivaled as the most popular character of the newly introduced Ensemble Stars!! units, where he's viewed as a Lovable Sex Maniac with a Hidden Heart of Gold Beneath the Mask of hedonism he wears. He’s also the biggest reason Crazy B rose to popularity as quickly as it did...at least in Japan. See Americans Hate Tingle.
  • This also applies to units, as generally the in-universe lore doesn't reflect on reality (In most instances, anyway). If a unit is stated to be unpopular or outright hated in universe, real life tends to show the opposite. Case in point, Knights in-story were notably stated to have a low reputation, but in real life have consistently been the most popular unit in the franchise since the games introduction, out-ranking fine which is stated to be the prime and undefeatable unit in-story. UNDEAD and Ryuseitai have this reputation as well, being extremely popular units that trump fine alongside Knights out of the games universe but are not recognized as such in-universe... until Ensemble Stars!! anyway. That isn't to say fine is unpopular, but they're certainly not more popular than the above talked about units despite what the story says.
  • Crazy:B as a whole also has an extremely negative reputation in-universe due to their actions in the main story, but are currently one of the most popular units despite being fairly new to the franchise.
• Values Dissonance: The main reason so many debates happen in the western fanbase is mainly based around this trope. While there are far too many to list, here are some prominent examples.
  • Anzu's characterization was met with much debate in the west due to many west players having a different opinion on what makes a strong heroine which makes her an even more Base-Breaking Character there than outside of the west.
  • While there are many accusation of Shu being abusive towards unit members (especially Mika) during past-Valkyrie era in the west, his actions are mostly tolerated as something similar to "parental love" in Asian fandom (especially in Korean fandom, to the point where simply stating that his past behaviors were problematic automatically raises Flame War). In the west, he is mostly seen as The Atoner who wants to make amends for his past actions towards his companions, in contrast to the Asian fanbase, where he is simply seen as a misunderstood person with overly heavy responsibilities and is Good All Along. It is likely that general strictness of Asian households and the emphasis on the sense of responsibility among older members of the society somewhat made it easier to justify his intent.
  • Shipping the Third Year students with any of the Second or First-year students usually causes some controversy due to claims of Unequal Pairing and pedophilia. Though shipping the Third Year characters together has gotten some flack, too. There were claims during the Easter Of The Undead event that shipping Kaoru, who is 17, and Rei, who is 18, is an example of an Unequal Pairing despite the two just being a year apart in age.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Trickstar, the protagonist unit, has a much less defined motif than any other in the game. All units have obvious themes going on for them, tied to their image styles and the type of music they produce: UNDEAD uses dark and rock-like imagery (with two of their members even claiming to be creatures of darkness, namely vampire and werewolf); Ra*bits is formed by cute and/or small boys and their songs are notably bubbly; Akatsuki is all about Japanese tradition; Knights uses of Chess Motifs and is the unit that sounds closer to a refined real boy-band; Ryuseitai is inspired by heroes and Sentai shows; fine invokes angelic (such as feathers and light clothes) and royal imagery which fits their status as the in-universe best unit in school, and so it goes. Trickstar is recognizable mainly for their enthusiasm and the fact that they are newbies with the goal of destroying fine's absolute reign... which some other units were already trying to do anyway (they were the first ones to actually succeed, however).
  • While Trickstar's theme isn't as defining as say, Ryuseitai, they actually do have one, and it's...well, stars/astronomy. Knowing Japanese makes it a bit more obvious, as the boys are either explicitly named after constellations or stars, a la Subaru or Hokuto, or discreetly reference them, such as Mao's full name (see the Constellation motif under General in Trickstar's character page). The contrast between a "starry" (implied nighttime) image versus their bright/"sunny" image as a group might be part of the trouble in making them seem less defined; even their classic performing outfits are a typical "bright" idol look, with, of course, star bands looped in their belts. Even then their theme doesn't stand out much from other series' main groups, as they tend to use similar Stellar Theme Naming (Uta No Prince Sama's ST★RISH, all of the Pythagoras Productions groups of Marginal #4, or DRAMATIC STARS of THE iDOLM@STER: SideM, for example).
• Villain Has a Point: Eichi's methods in gaining control of the idol system in Yumenosaki Academy may be very questionable, but Nazuna in the Marionette's Memories event mentions that the students in the Idol course aren't even motivated to actually improve themselves as idols. With this in mind, Eichi taking control of the school's idol system may be a good thing, because if the current idol units don't improve themselves, then it'll cause the unit to fall apart and later, the school itself. With the latee reveal of the rival schools, Reimei Academy and Shuetsu Academy, Eichi might have been trying to prepare for the inevitable encounter in the future.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Ensemble Stars!! Music has some of the best looking 3DPV's of any mobile rhythm game on the market currently, with sleek-looking models, lighting effects, and weighty clothing physics.
• Vocal Minority: Due to the western fandom being significantly smaller than the JPN, KR and other Ensemble Stars! fanbases, the bulk discourse, fan headcanons, and etc. come from the group of fans who tend to be the loudest. The Silent Majority of western Ensemble Stars! fans aren't exactly vocal about their interests/opinions due to Ensemble Stars! being widely panned in the west among most other western mobage fanbases, as some tend to admit.
• Wham Episode:
  • The Starlight Festival episode brought the mention of the graves of Yumenosaki academy students whose dreams had been crushed that they were Driven to Suicide. Sure there had been darker moments in the story of Ensemble Stars as a whole but this really takes the cake with the mention of deaths of past students.
  • The card preview for Baton Pass! Repayment Festival of Tears and Bonds shows all members but Kanata crying with seemingly Midori and Tetora getting into a fight and Shinobu asking for help over it all.
  • Though it was foreshadowed before, Madara revealing to Kuro in Breakthrough! The Revolutionary Live Which Heralds The Dawn that he lied about being close to Anzu in their childhood in order to manipulate the rebellion is this.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Word of God says that the main story is more in line with Shounen demographic stories with elements typically found in Josei^note Works targeted at women in the age groups 18-45 added into it. However, mentions of suicide in the Starlight Festival chapter and some cast members having really dark backstories makes one think that it shouldn't really be something for young players. Some players also think that the game's story rivals Arisa in terms of how dark the stories can get (arguably, Arisa lacks the Lighter and Softer twist that EnStars had).
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? / What Do You Mean, It's Not for Little Girls?: The game is viewed as this post-the games Appstore rating being changed to 17+ from the initial 4+ rating. This is downplayed, as the writers had always intended for the game to be for a Josei audience (women in the age ranges of 18-45, which also form the half of the adult-oriented smartphone population) with the games main story containing most of the shounen elements due to the main scenario writer not being familiar with the Josei genre. It's a wonder how the game skirted a higher rating for years, considering the platform being more adult-oriented and how dark the topics it touched upon in the main, gacha and scout stories were.
• The Woobie:
  • Midori. You've got to admit that he really needs a hug, given all the things he's wound up getting into without meaning to.
  • The second years and third years could apply. Shu is a Jerkass Woobie who is broken for being bullied of his love of dolls, and broken further by Eichi. Nazuna, due to his stuttering, has grown to be mute and impassive for the sake of his former unit's perfect performance. Subaru for being alienated by his peers simply because he wanted to have fun and be happy despite the grim situation of the "War". And the list goes on.
  • Tsumugi. Dear god, Tsumugi. He, perhaps is the only one who had a much more troubled past than the rest of the cast.
  • For those who played Ensemble Girls!, Anzu can be considered as one. Ensemble Girls! reveals the full story to how Anzu was transferred to Yumenosaki academy, she runs a rebellion campaign against the school's strict rules that values only academics than the students own enjoyment of their school life. Anzu happened to be the president of her old school's tea club and used it as a base for her La Résistance team. Sakura, Anzu's acquaintance and middle school classmate however, didn't like what Anzu plans to do, being part of the student council herself and so requested Reika, the student council president at the time to have Anzu abdicate the position as club president with the teacher's aid. But the teachers see it as a chance to get Anzu out of the school due to her actions that have her marked as a troublemaker and encouraged the other students to bully her. Eventually causing Anzu to have enough and leave. No wonder she was so sullen and quiet by the time she was enrolled to Yumenosaki academy.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Many of Crazy:B’s unit costumes get this reaction, but especially the ones from the Animated Music Video Honeycomb Summer.