KARAHAI", "YUMELIA", and "iM@S" have Namco's bloodline.

Nowadays, numerous "idol works" have been created for anime, video games, and other genres, and CD releases and real events are held every month by the casts who play the idols.

How were these "2.5-dimensional" idols, who freely move between two and three dimensions, born and how did they shape the scene? Writer Kiri Nakazato, who has been observing 2.5-dimensional idols of the Showa, Heisei, and 2025 eras, has started the fourth installment of her popular series summarizing the history of these idols!

One of the standard topics of conversation among idol content lovers at drinking parties is the composition of 2.5D idol ideal festivals produced by me. The opening song would be "THE IDOLM@STER (song title)". Or, if it's iM@S, "The world is all one ! would be appropriate. The promised song that the idols gather to sing is "SUNNY DAY SONG," of course. Naturally, the fistfights started right away (laughs), but the "Bandai Namco Entertainment Festival" held in October 2019 was a live concert that made such fantasies of otaku a reality. The venue was Tokyo Dome 2DAYS.

⇒The venue was the Tokyo Dome 2DAYS! Report of "Namco Bandai Entertainment Festival" DAY1
⇒" iM@S", "LOVE LIVE! Aikatsu! and other idols gathered at the Tokyo Dome!　A long and rich report on "Namco Bandai Entertainment Festival" DAY2!

Among the two days of live performances, DAY 2 in particular had a very strong idol content, with a lot of "THE iDOLM@STER" series, "LOVE LIVE! Sunshine! Sunshine!", and "Aikatsu! series gathered in one venue on this historic day. The venue was, of course, filled to capacity with the largest crowd of fans I have ever seen. There are many other companies with strong idol IPs, but I believe that only the BANDAI NAMCO Group can create this all-star atmosphere on its own.

As you can see from the company name, this company is the former "Bandai" and "Namco" combined into one, and the 2000s was a time of a series of very large mergers of game companies, such as Square for "Final Fantasy" and Enix for "Dragon Quest" becoming one company. One of the reasons for this was that the cost of developing software for the ultra-high-performance game hardware continued to skyrocket, and it was a time when the scale of a development company and economies of scale were extremely important. This period, which saw a series of mergers in the game industry, was also the eve of radical changes in the structure of the industry due to social games and application games.

The arcade version of "THE iDOLM@STER," which went into operation in July 2005, was the last seed left by Namco before the merger. The arcade version of "THE iDOLM@STER," which began operating in July 2005, was the last seed left by Namco before the merger.

NAMCO LIMITED was founded in 1955 in Ikegami, Tokyo, as "Nakamura Manufacturing Co. The company started its amusement business with two wooden horses set up on the roof of a department store, and in the 1970s expanded into the video game business, changing its name to NAMCO LTD. in 1977. Namco went on to create a series of legendary hits in arcade games, starting with "Galaxian" in 1979, followed by "Pac-Man" (1980), "Xevious" (1983), and "Tower of Druaga" (1984). The young people who admired Namco during this golden era would eventually become the driving force behind the creation of numerous titles, including "THE iDOLM@STER".

Before a title is born, there are always steps that precede it. One of the foundations for "THE iDOLM@STER" as a nurturing game was the context of the company's arcade quiz games. Many people who attended game arcades at the time may remember "Parenting Quiz: My Angel," which was released in 1996. This game went on to become a popular series, but in 2003, a title with a slightly different approach appeared. It was "Seishun Quiz Colorful High School," a quiz game with elements of a romance simulation game. The characters in this game were designed by Toshiyuki Kubooka, the same designer as in "THE iDOLM@STER.

Namco had a great deal of technical expertise in 3D models, a major component of "THE iDOLM@STER," having released "RIDGE RACER" in 1993 and "Tekken" in arcades in 1994. In the so-called "bishojo" genre, the 1996 release of "Dancing Eye" was also significant. The attempt to depict beautiful girls in 3DCG has been repeated since the 1990s, but "YUMERIA" was the first to use 3D to pursue the beauty of 3D, rather than reproducing 2D. I think "Yumelia" was groundbreaking in that it pursued the beauty that only 3D can achieve, rather than reproducing 2D in 3D. In a sense, the "Dreameria Benchmark," a PC benchmark software released as part of the fan service, became even more famous than the original version.

The title "The Stare Audition," which was installed in Namco Wonder Egg 2 in 1997, is also worth mentioning. Namco collaborated with Amuse, HORIPRO, and Nippon Broadcasting System to create this title, which allowed players to audition for talent at amusement facilities, and produced big names such as Satoshi Tsumabuki, Yui Ichikawa, and Shun Shioya. The game was later made into an arcade title, "Starr Audition," which was also released nationwide. Although this title has no direct connection to iM@S, one may find continuity in the theme of auditioning with a cabinet and in the mini-games used to screen for aptitude.

The arcade version of "THE iDOLM@STER" was born as a result of these developments. The arcade version, especially the first version, was characterized by its severe game balance. The audition system, which connected game centers across Japan online, was highly competitive, and a single loss in an audition against other players often meant the end of the road to the top. This emphasis on the competitive element as a versus game is said to have been made by Junichiro Koyama, the first producer of the arcade version of "THE iDOLM@STER.

Without that decision, the current boom in idol content probably would not exist. Back then, when "THE iDOLM@STER" and "LOVE LIVE! did not exist, the mainstay of arcade games were online mahjong games such as Sega's "Sega Network Mahjong MJ" and Konami's "Mahjong Fight Club," and prize games where players could win stuffed toys and figurines. The psychological barrier to playing idol games on a large cabinet at a time when video games were in decline was so high that it is hard to imagine today. In such an era, the game we were playing was a hellish battlefield so severe that it is hard to imagine from the surface (for "experienced players"), and I was proud that I was an Idolmaster who had won the battle together with my idols, The pride that I was an Idolmaster who had won the game together with my idols was one of the things that kept my back up.

One more thing that Mr. Koyama left behind for me was the "Mail Please" system. In an age when you had to go to a game center to meet your idol, this system made you feel closer to your idol. There is a funny story about Mr. Koyama who compared this system to a sales e-mail from a cabaret club girl and got quite angry ......, but there is no doubt that Mr. Koyama's light-hearted personality and his lovable side as a game idiot had a great impact on the work "THE iDOLM@STER". There is no doubt that Mr. Koyama's light-hearted personality and his lovable game playing ways had a great impact on "THE iDOLM@STER.

Not long after he was no longer in charge of "THE iDOLM@STER," Koyama became a mega-hit with "Mobile Suit Gundam: Senjo no Kizuna" (Mobile Suit Gundam: Senjo no Kizuna). The great first producer also left his mark on the name of Junichiro Takagi, the first president of "THE iDOLM@STER" 765 Productions.

The story of the arcade version of "THE iDOLM@STER" will come to a close in the next installment. In the next installment, we will get to the heart of the 2.5-dimensional content, namely, music and live performances.

(Text by Kiri Nakazato)