Hi guys, it’s been a while.
If there are three things that I’m thankful this past Sunday, (1) I still have my faith intact, (2) I produced two videos coming soon on YouTube – as I write this, I’m already rendering video #2, and (3) I got to witness THE iDOLM@STER’s 15th Anniversary YouTube stream in full.
Let me get my chest off iM@S first, and apologies in advance for raising some critical matters just right after they celebrated their 15th year celebration. I’ll be talking about the matters which were not mentioned in the live stream.
As someone who’s not into the games (read: anime-only casual), I’ve started with Puchim@s on iflix first until I ramped up and watch most of the anime series (including Episode 20), as data at that time wasn’t that limited and telcos offer uninterrupted access to select sites.
Come to think of it, the matters prior to Episode 20 deal with the struggle in the entertainment industry as well as trauma.
Years later, I am traumatized by the news that Yurina Hase, the voice actress of Yukiho (one of my favorites btw) prior to the entry of Azumi Asakura, had said a lot against some of her colleagues in the industry, including the iM@S cast.
I found myself traumatized after reading on the issue. My curiosity got ahead and scarred my poor heart.
Prior to this, five years ago, she already disclosed why she’s off the iM@S cast:
Hase went on by mentioning the death threats against her as a major source of anxiety. The pressures that came with dealing with police made it physically and mentally difficult for her to record. She suffered from hyperventilation just by going to rehearsals. Although she had told the Namco staff that she could not appear at events, they had told her, “Please continue to play Yukiho!”
The story also says the following paragraph translated from her post:
“…I think that the Yukiho I played is my Yukiho, and the one played by Azumin (Azumi Asakura) is her Yukiho. After all, if I didn’t think that, it would just be rude to Azumin. She’s a very cute Yukiho. A miraculous Yukiho. However, I also hold the Yukiho that I played very dear in my heart.”
As I start finding out what went wrong, I remember Omo’s post:
In the past couple years, Yurishii started to do influencer/personality stuff for her small group of fans. At first it was talking about her time in the IDOLM@STER series, then it escalated to her covering old IM@S tunes–which seems to be fine since she is not related to the series at this point. But at some point it escalated into her cosplaying Yukiho and selling chekis of that, and there was some more escalation in which led to Bandai Namco sending a C&D letter to her. A lot of fans suspect this was the act which motivated her to do that live stream on Monday.
Monday, referring to Yurishii opening up on her Showroom page, details of which are left somewhere in the air as Showrooms can’t be recorded except if there’s a heads-up (like Miki’s, which raked in a lot of viewers).
I don’t want to go into further detail as I’m as confused as you right now, but if not for Omo, I won’t get back up and continue my support over this series. Imagine losing trust for Mingosu and Eririn just because of this incident which I believe had no closure at all on the side of Yurishii.
Thinking about it further, will the lack of closure lead to a revamp of the industry? Will the industry even be willing to reflect on this? Say, if Yurishii is a whistleblower, and some influential person in the industry got sick of the casting couch thing and acts like the dragon woken up by the whistle, wouldn’t it be nice to see the industry reflect?
No, the industry will stay as it is. We’re dealing with a franchise which won’t fall at all. Jay, the world does not revolve on her – the world won’t even revolve around you. It can reflect on its own but things will stay the same until someone acts with empathy.
As far as I see it, the rest act on either maintenance or survival – to maintain their lead and keep marking on its fans, or continue to survive the challenges of building such a huge franchise.
It’s sad that iM@S has something like this in their history books, but nowadays it will be just that – another part of history.
I had come into a conclusion where Yurishii has to have a closure and settle differences with her colleagues regardless if they’re fellow voice actresses.
If anyone remembers the Kokoro Connect prank incident in 2012, the aftermath of it tells us that the subject of bullying Mitsuhiro Ichiki guested on Mingosu’s show and she side on him, saying “it was completely low of them.” Mind you, Asakura’s role as Yukiho got announced around 2010.
I also have to raise the point that Takuma Terashima is one of the accomplices in the prank. He plays Teru Tendo in the iM@S franchise. I wonder how they are doing, and if they are interacting after all of the ruse. Such is the mind of an overthinker who gives a damn more on other people rather than himself.
As for Yurishii, we simply wish that she finds her closure in all of these, given that as I understood in the pull-quotes above, she loves her role as Yukiho even after her iM@S stint. We all love to go back in time where there were no conflicts and we’re free to do what we can do without any fear of being hurt mentally and physically.
As for me, honestly, I wish I hadn’t known the matter about Yurishii; I wish it had not happened at all. Ignorance is bliss. The problem is that if we continue to delay expressing ourselves, it bottles up to become yet another traumatizing bombshell. Or maybe I was just merely overreacting, I can’t deduce even until now.
Another matter which was not mentioned was Xenoglossia. I wonder why it was not mentioned – it has Sunrise animating it for 26 episodes with an all-start cast. Was it that different from the franchise, given that it can be possible to include it in the same way SLEEPING BE@UTY was teased as a feature-length film on an actual feature-length film?
Or maybe it was because of the different cast, like how AKB0048 was.
I’ve said a lot of things which will put me into yet another jeopardy, but again, if I bottle this up, I think I won’t be able to move on.
I hope iM@S has not forgotten these matters at hand – it’s part of them, no matter what. Bad matters which we are too embarrassed to accept still has to be accepted, else it will haunt us. Sure, we are celebrating, so I can understand that they won’t even try to mention this – but at best we see the Puchis in the 15th Anniversary Theme Video.
There has to be some kind of closure, and perhaps the satisfaction of letting my ideas vent out of the meek windows of my mind can help. I hope you’re all doing well, and I hope you’re ok with this. Thank you very much.