After New Game! ended, Shotaro Tokuno headed over to Houbunsha's online-only manga service, COMIZ FUZ, to do what he does best: make cute anime girls cry!
IDOL × IDOL STORY! is the story of a washed-up 22 year old former idol named Mimi who gets dragged out of retirement by the driven, determined 17 year old idol, Ibuki, she once inspired. Together, they join Starship, a Reality TV competition set on a cruise ship where sixteen wannabe idols are pitted against each other until the last five standing debut as a unit.
This ain't your papa's Manga Time Kirara. Aside from drama and Broken Birds aplenty, it's got full backal nudity ... BY A MAN.
Jokes aside (although the male full backal is not a joke) — it's not the darkest take on idols, but it's not exactly the idealistic "I just wanna make people smile!"-type stuff either. It subverts the typical idol show by having way too many potential members, and forcing them to compete in order to pare their numbers down and weed out the weak, while the host of the competition (a veteran idol) really digs into their psychological flaws and exposes them for everybody to see. Tokuno's great at giving the girls sympathetic backstories delivered via flashback, which makes it all the more tragic when they get axed for their failure.
If you enjoyed all those New Game! arcs where Aoba gets her hopes and dreams ruthlessly crushed by managerial edict, you'll love Idol x Idol Story!
Chapter 39 just dropped, and one look at the line-up shows how much the second face-off is really hotting up. Friend versus friend (Mimi/Ibuki)! Sister versus sister (Tsumugi/Yuuri)! Otoboshi starlet versus Otoboshi starlet (Ritsu/Hitohito)!
And then that asshole Tsubasa shows up — via helicopter! — so he can pull rank and vote for Aoi, the idol he's conspiring with(?), who is currently facing off against Koyuki. Poor Koyuki is going to get absolutely destroyed in this round. She's just so wholesome and pure, I don't want her to go. I can only hope it'll be so obvious that Tokuno throws us a curveball and eliminates somebody unexpected.
After New Game! ended, Shotaro Tokuno headed over to Houbunsha's online-only manga service, COMIZ FUZ, to do what he does best: make cute anime girls cry!
IDOL × IDOL STORY! is the story of a washed-up 22 year old former idol named Mimi who gets dragged out of retirement by the driven, determined 17 year old idol, Ibuki, she once inspired. Together, they join Starship, a Reality TV competition set on a cruise ship where sixteen wannabe idols are pitted against each other until the last five standing debut as a unit.
But here, let Naomi Ozora explain it to you:
This ain't your papa's Manga Time Kirara. Aside from drama and Broken Birds aplenty, it's got full backal nudity ... BY A MAN.
Jokes aside (although the male full backal is not a joke) — it's not the darkest take on idols, but it's not exactly the idealistic "I just wanna make people smile!"-type stuff either. It subverts the typical idol show by having way too many potential members, and forcing them to compete in order to pare their numbers down and weed out the weak, while the host of the competition (a veteran idol) really digs into their psychological flaws and exposes them for everybody to see. Tokuno's great at giving the girls sympathetic backstories delivered via flashback, which makes it all the more tragic when they get axed for their failure.
If you enjoyed all those New Game! arcs where Aoba gets her hopes and dreams ruthlessly crushed by managerial edict, you'll love Idol x Idol Story!
Chapter 39 just dropped, and one look at the line-up shows how much the second face-off is really hotting up. Friend versus friend (Mimi/Ibuki)! Sister versus sister (Tsumugi/Yuuri)! Otoboshi starlet versus Otoboshi starlet (Ritsu/Hitohito)!
And then that asshole Tsubasa shows up — via helicopter! — so he can pull rank and vote for Aoi, the idol he's conspiring with(?), who is currently facing off against Koyuki. Poor Koyuki is going to get absolutely destroyed in this round. She's just so wholesome and pure, I don't want her to go. I can only hope it'll be so obvious that Tokuno throws us a curveball and eliminates somebody unexpected.