This is mostly going to be about the OAV, since there really isn’t much to say about the game. It’s kind of fun, though there really isn’t all that much to it – it is a pretty easy 1000 gamer points, though the amount of travel in the 360 pads face buttons makes the higher difficulty settings a little harder than they should be. I really need to go back through and play all the tracks whilst wearing headphones in order to properly judge the remix tracks, but they are a real mixed bag. Some of them really, really don’t work – they’ve tried to turn My Best Friend into a trash metal track for it’s A-mix, and the disconnect between the backing track and the vocal is horrendous (the unreleased chip-tune-tastic B-mix at least sounds better) – whilst some of the others are great. My favourite is probably the A-mix of Aoi Tori, which is dropping in so much gothic malice that it really wouldn’t sound out of place in a Vampire movie.

Anyway, onto the OAV…

Point of Vague Amusement – this is the scrub office you have when you start playing iMAS for the first time. As you increase you producer rank through repeated play, you move to increasingly better offices. In actual L4U, I think you are actually in one of the mid-range ones. In any case, you aren’t in the office block so ghetto that your company name is plastered onto the window with masking tape ^^;

Time for the roll call.

Game Yukiho – scared of everything. Especially boys.

Game Ritsuko – the best character, and I’m not just saying that because she’s the only legal character who doesn’t annoy me. I’m saying it because she wear glasses. In the game, if you actually select eyewear as one of your accessories (say, a pair of sunglasses), unlike the other characters she’ll wear them pushed up over her head.

Game Iori – She’s an excessively wealthy tsundere. Cookies will not be awarded to anyone guessing her seiyuu.

Game Azusa – somehow manages to mix all the parts I hate in Hayate’s Izumi and Kanons Akiko into a character I, errr, rather dislike. I guess that’s not really surprising…

Miki – Doesn’t need the game prefix since she didn’t make Xenoglossia. I think she’s still bitter about it.

Game Haruka – her trademark is her ribbons, and she falls over a lot (which I guess explains the OP to Xenoglossia, as there wasn’t really anything in the show to suggest a lack of coordination).

Game Chihaya – not insane. Kind of boring, I guess.

Game Makoto – Not a bitch.

Game Yayoi – She’s poor, but she works hard (well, according to that song from Beautiful Katamari, anyway).

Game Ami and Mami – has a horribly disfigured hand.

Anyway, The girls all split up in order to get a good nights sleep before the Fan Appreciation Concert they are holding following day, but mysteriously Miki walks home with Haruka despite not living in that direction. No doubt she’s planning on killing her due to resentment over the whole Xenoglossia affair.

Chihaya, however, interrupts her plans, as her own dissatisfaction at her level of preparation causes her to head back to the office, dragging Haruka (and Miki) along with her.

Ringo watch? Alas, it’s an Apple rather than an Orange box. Curious nerdy gaming point – this is the dance studio where your idols dance lessons take place in the game. In the OAV it’s in your office, which seems kind of odd given the size (and the fact that you continue to use the same studio in the game even when you move). Actually, the fact that Chihaya seems to feel the need to practice her dancing seems kind off odd too, given that her base dance stat is pretty moderate, and the fact that she’s only really into the singing part of the whole idol thing…

Several hours later, the girls accidentally find themselves at a train station in the middle of nowhere. Oops.

Then their taxi breaks.

Haruka forgets that they’d already done the Cellphone-with-no-signal thing to death in Xenoglossia. Either that, or she just wants to give Miki one less reason to kill her.

Coincidently, the girl on her cellphone is from the old Namco game Legend of Valkyrie – the individual parts of her armour were among the first pieces of DLC for the first iMAS game on 360 (they’re a present with another DLC item in L4U, from what I gather).

Miki sees the Watch Out For Pedobear sign and freaks out.

Thankfully, there’s a house near by. If they are lucky, it won’t turn out like Kagetsu Tohyas Imogirisou. If the audience is lucky, it will.

Less than four minutes in and they’ve already got a bathing scene – I don’t think even Xenoglossia managed it that quickly (by the way, Miki is actually the youngest girl there, despite being larger, err, upfront).

Miki thinks the people who own the house are strange, so wakes everyone up. Gotta love Chihayas expression here.

Anyway, it looks like they’re Yakuza, as they’ve got a bag of money, have tied up the taxi driver and have stolen the girls phones. Oh noes!

Not sure if I’m supposed to recognise the characters on the phone chains here or not – I recognise the mouse in a cop suit from some iMAS artwork, and the guy with the glasses is Bravoman (a game kind of famous in retro-game fandom for it’s Engrish). No idea on the other one, though.

So, the girls run away, but they only have twelve hours before the concert! DOUBLE OH NOES!

They try to catch a lift in a nearby truck. I wonder if Japanese truckers really do wear those things around their waists. Speaking of which, exactly what is that thing around his waist anyway?

He refuses, so they sneak into the back anyway.

But as soon as that truck leaves, a suspiciously iMAS decored one turns up. Hmmm…

With six hours to go, they find themselves thrown out of the truck even further out in the middle of nowhere. Whoops. The fact confuses Miki, who reveals that this was all supposed to be a rigged series of disasters for a TV special, and that the drinks she’d given them earlier had been laced with sleeping drugs. Personally, I think she’s either been taking lessons from Britneys management, or she’s been luring them out into the middle of nowhere, where nobody will ever discover the shallow graves in which their corpse will lie. Do it now, Miki! DO IT NOW!

“HAHAHAHA! SCREW YOUR CRAPPY, NO RANGE XENOGLOSSIA PHONES! I’VE GOT A WORKING ONE!”

Xevious?

That pixel art kind of annoys me given it cheats with a couple of fine lines separating the ships body from the wings. If you are doing pixel art, you should only be using statically sized pixels!

Apparently, if they run, they might juuuuust catch the train in time to get back for the concert.

But, of course, they don’t. Haruka is determined to make it anyway.

Miki wishes there was a giant robot around to whisk them away to the concert. See, what have I been telling you, she’s still bitter about Xenoglossia. Better watch out, Haruka, it’s not like there’d be many witnesses out there if Miki was to suddenly turn stabby.

“Imber?”

Nope, it’s the Sanzen, errr, Minase SPs to the rescue.

And they make it back on time, but not before Haruka falls over. The End.

I actually had a look for the costume variant used here in the game, though I couldn’t see it. Its one of the generic three costumes from the original game (anything else you had to buy – L4U at least provides your casuals, sukumizu, swimwear and a Marching Band uniform for free), but the colour/texture variant is either DLC-only or new for the OAV. If it’s not DLC yet, I’m sure it will be in a future catalogue update, since they’ve left themselves plenty of room to expand with L4U.

Anyway, that’s it. It was fun, but I think the eighteen minutes here is quite enough. As much as I like iMAS, I really don’t think I could stomach an entire series of the stuff – I just don’t think there’s enough mileage in it. I’m kind of curious how they’ve pulled it off in some of the manga adaptations, actually. Maybe I should pick up a couple of volumes from Japan and have a look.

In any case, as nice a diversion this is, I’m quite happy with what we got with Xenoglossia, even if half the rest of iMAS fandom isn’t…