Although I essentially quit watching anime after failing to surmount Railgun, and meeting other circumstances, I am staying in touch with my inner otaku. The outcome is that I started reading manga. I never understood, appreciated, or plain liked the big sister art. However, it has one great advantage: a bookmark in the book. I can squeeze reading into fragments of the day where anime would not be possible. As an aside, I realize that I could experiment with portable media. In fact, the first thing I did with my new AV8OR was to upload fansubs to it... But it's just not clicking, somehow.

So, we're having another journey of discovery here. First of all, I went through the Idolm@ster Break v.3, that I bought because it came with an IM@S CD that I wanted. It provides an interesting glimpse into what we can expect from the upcoming Idolm@ster The Anime. I did not doubt that it were possible to come up with a story. This issue, however, is that not having a well-developed story was probably helpful for Binchou-tan and Strike Witches. The games, however, do have a setting already, and we the anime is supposed to be faithful to it. Can it be interesting, or are we getting another Puffy Ami Yumi?

The Break tackles the problem in a very straightforward way. The v.3 opens with Miki defecting from Namco Pro (spelled "765") to Kuroi Pro (spelled "961"). The Producer, who is a very young man, and a grandson of Namco's president, starts doubting himself. Pictured is Iori, apparently a childhood friend, giving him some osananajimi encouragement, while Haruka et al. are peeking. From there on we have the problem of management of idols, which looks quite similar to what SDB marked as a "samurai story" of Hanaukyou Maid Tai. The rivalry between Kuroi and Namco provides the conflict.

The setup is serviceable, IMHO. It only needs to be executed properly, and then resolved better than, say, Zero no Tsukaima's story was.