★Josei-muke, Spotlight

[Otome Watch] Sega’s Upcoming “Readyyy!” Project – An Idol Raising Project

readyyyprojectbanner

Sega has announced its latest venture in making contents for the female audience. Back in 2015 Sega released Yumeiro Cast, a female oriented mobile game about musicals, this time they’re jumping in on the “Idol” bandwagon with their ambitious Readyyy! Project. Seeing that it had only just recently been announced, there is not a lot of information about it but that’s what Otome Watch posts are for–I’ll be constantly updating this post when news comes in so keep an eye on this post.

As most of my Otome Watch posts go, I’ll be using images only posted on the official website and will also be referencing articles from Japanese online news like Dengenki Online throughout the post.

I will also be trying my best to translate important information from the website into English, however I am still an amateur so please take my translations with a grain of salt as they are not entirely accurate.


—Table of Contents

  1. History
  2. Introduction | Story
  3. Characters & Units
  4. Events | MVs
  5. Extras
  6. After Thoughts | Links

History


The Readyyy! Project was officially announced in an event on the 14th of February, 2018 hosted at nicofarre (niconico douga’s venue where the walls are LED screens, etc). The event was also streamed to Niconico Douga, Youtube, Periscope and Twitch. Sadly the didn’t archive it but if you have a premium account on Nico Douga then you could probably watch it through Time Shift, then again I’m not sure how time shift works in Nico Douga. So if you have a premium Nico Douga account you can watch the stream here until 21st February, 2018 (JST?).

Dengeki Online had done an article covering the event, which you can read here (it is all in Japanese but feel free to turn on google translate for that page).

Before the live event announcement on February 14, Sega or more or less the official twitter for this project started teasing this project on 9th December, 2017. This was back when the Readyyy! Project’s official website url was otome.sega.jp, back when nothing much was known about the project except that it’ll be “Sega’s latest female oriented title: a Idol raising app game”. Sadly I only caught wind of this on 17th February so I couldn’t follow this straight from the beginning. I hadn’t been keeping up on magazines lately so I’m not sure if it was teased in B’s Log or Dengeki’s Girls Style, though I can bet it may have been promoted by Dengeki considering it has lots of online articles covering it.

Now having officially announced this project, Sega has another event planned on 14th of March, 2018, which will probably be streamed as well. Here’s hoping they’ll announce further information on what this Project has in store.

If I can get my hands on a premium membership then I’ll be happy to share more information/images in the stream down below in the “events/MVs” section.


Introduction | Story


Raise 18 School Boys to be Top Idols!

photo.png

*Image and this excerpt is translated from the Official Readyyy! Project Website, found on this page

In an era where all idols are ranked—
The protagonist decides to enter the idol industry as a newcomer producer in an entertainment office called “Dear Productions”.
Moreover, the protagonist is also in charge of being the dormitory manager of a share house full of 18 newcomer idols!?
Surrounded by the beautiful scenery of Kamakura*, while stumbling and chasing the dreams they cling to, Readyyy! Project is a youth success story of 18 people + 1 person!

*For those wondering, Kamakura is a seaside city south of Tokyo. It’s a mix of a modern resort town, with the flare of Buddhist Zen temples and Shinto Shrines. Kamakura will be the setting for this story and you know what, it’s quite a beautiful place to set a story in. The image used above is a depiction of Kamakura’s scenery and may be used for the final mobile game.


Characters & Units


Currently there are 5 Idol Units and 18 Idols that you will supposedly raise to be top idols. Most of the voice actors that are voicing these characters are fresh faces in the voice acting scene, most of their credits are either school boy B or background characters but it doesn’t make them less qualified to be good voice actors.

Each voice actor has which voice acting agency they’re from and their previous acting credits listed on the official Readyyy! Project website, format will be: [Voice actors name] (Agency name). I’ll link their agency profile if its available.

Translations of school names with a (?) means that I’m not sure how to romanize it, so don’t use it as if it’s an official translation.

*Images and character profiles are translated from the Official Readyyy! Project Website, found on this page

break

SP!CA

break

Mitsuki Kuze

CV: Tetsuei Sumiya (Arts Vision)

Birthday | 9th April

Zodiac Sign | Aries

Blood Type | Type A

Height | 174.5cm

Weight | 57.5kg

School | Kanagawa Prefecture Hamamigaoka(?) High School

Hobbies | Teppanyaki eating tours, cooking, shopping

Samon Nishikido

CV: Norihito Hase (81 Produce)

Birthday | 7th September

Zodiac Sign | Virgo

Blood Type | Type A

Height | 178cm

Weight | 59.5kg

School | Private Kamakura Eiryou(?)  Academy

Hobbies | Reading (business books), psychology study, attending court trials (to observe)

Hiro Igarashi

CV: Hayato Komiya (Arts Vision)

Birthday | 27th July

Zodiac Sign | Leo

Blood Type | Type O

Height | 175.8cm

Weight | 58.5kg

School |  Kaihoku(?) Institute of Technology Private Senior High School

Hobbies |  Snowboarding, fishing, mobile/portable games

Azusa Konno

CV: Atsushi Endo (Arts Vision)

Birthday | 10th October

Zodiac Sign | Libra

Blood Type | Type AB

Height | 179cm

Weight | 62kg

School |  Kanagawa Prefecture Hamamigaoka(?) High School

Hobbies | Bonsai, Go (strategy board game), touring temples, going to hot springs

Takumi Kurumizawa

CV: Noriaki Kanze (Ken Production)

Birthday | 28th February

Zodiac Sign | Pisces

Blood Type | Type B

Height | 169cm

Weight | 57kg

School | Private Kamakura Eiryou(?)  Academy

Hobbies | Daydreaming, napping, searching for fluffy cushions

break

Maten Rocket

break

Soushi Fujiwara

CV: Ryuichi Sawada (Ken Production)

Birthday | 10th December

Zodiac Sign | Sagittarius

Blood Type | Type O

Height | 175.3cm

Weight | 58kg

School | Private Kamakura Eiryou(?)  Academy

Hobbies | Afternoon tea, gardening, horoscopes, touring planetariums

Zen Iseya

CV: Tomohiro Ohmachi (Ken Production)

Birthday | 2nd August

Zodiac Sign | Leo

Blood Type | Type B

Height | 174.2cm

Weight | 59kg

School |  Kaihoku(?) Institute of Technology Private Senior High School

Hobbies | Soccer, handicrafts, karaoke

Junnosuke Sanada

CV: Sonosuke Hattori (Aoni Production)

Birthday | 15th November

Zodiac Sign | Scorpio

Blood Type | Type A

Height | 172cm

Weight | 60kg

School | Kanagawa Prefecture Hamamigaoka(?) High School

Hobbies | Comedy research, replying in Q&A sites, bicycling

Aki Takachiho

CV: Shuichiro Umeda (Ken Production)

Birthday | 24th June

Zodiac Sign | Cancer

Blood Type | Type B

Height | 168cm

Weight | 55kg

School |  Kaihoku(?) Institute of Technology Private Senior High School

Hobbies | Appreciating anime, stream/upload videos, figure collection, visiting ghostly/haunted places

break

Just 4U

break

Tatsuma Akashi

CV: Haruto Kuroki (Ken Production)

Birthday | 28th May

Zodiac Sign | Gemini

Blood Type | Type A

Height | 179cm

Weight | 67kg

School |  Kaihoku(?) Institute of Technology Private Senior High School

Hobbies | Taking care of his stomach & intestines, dancing, DIY

Sui Yanagawa

CV: Issei Furuta (Ken Production)

Birthday | 28th August

Zodiac Sign | Virgo

Blood Type | Type AB

Height | 174.3cm

Weight | 59kg

School | Private Kamakura Eiryou(?) Academy

Hobbies | Creative activities, collecting candy toys, oil and watercolor paintings, coloring pictures

Komugi Ayasaki

CV: Shun Yasuda (Aoni Production)

Birthday | 21st March

Zodiac Sign | Aries

Blood Type | Type O

Height | 165cm

Weight | 54kg

School | Kanagawa Prefecture Hamamigaoka(?) High School

Hobbies | Tending to vegetable garden, taking strolls in Tokyo, singing in a cappella, outdoor camping

Riku Orikasa

CV: Taiki Bito (Aoni Production)

Birthday | 1st January

Zodiac Sign | Aquarius

Blood Type | Type A

Height | 163cm

Weight | 46kg

School | Kaihoku(?) Institute of Technology Private Senior High School

Hobbies | Writing a manga critique blog, shopping in the city, writing to discussion boards, altering/remaking casual clothes

break

RayGlanZ

break

Touya Munakata

CV: Shuma Konoe (81 Produce)

Birthday | 7th November

Zodiac Sign | Scorpio 

Blood Type | Type A

Height | 187cm

Weight | 74kg

School | Private Kamakura Eiryou(?) Academy

Hobbies | Horse riding, tea ceremony, buying and selling shares/stock, collecting audio equipment 

Chihiro Usui

CV: Masamu Ono (Aoni Production)

Birthday | 20th January

Zodiac Sign | Capricorn

Blood Type | Type O

Height | 176cm

Weight | 56kg

School | Kaihoku(?) Institute of Technology Private Senior High School

Hobbies | Collecting small leather goods, muscle training, games

Ango Kousaka

CV: Katsuyuki Miura (Atomic Monkey)

Birthday | 7th July

Zodiac Sign | Cancer

Blood Type | Type B

Height | 178.5cm

Weight | 61.5kg

School | Private Kamakura Eiryou(?) Academy

Hobbies | Reading (History / Mystery genres), general housework/chores, playing acoustic guitar 

break

La-Veritta

break

Uta Kamijo

CV: Yuki Sakakihara (81 Produce)

Birthday | 21st December

Zodiac Sign | Sagittarius

Blood Type | Type AB

Height | 170 cm

Weight | 53.5kg

School | Kanagawa Prefecture Hamamigaoka(?) High School

Hobbies | Aquarium, singing and playing an instrument at the same time, song composition, long baths

Genshin Shimizu

CV: Fumiya Tanaka (Atomic Monkey)

Birthday | 13th May

Zodiac Sign | Taurus

Blood Type | Type O

Height | 180 cm

Weight | 69kg

School | Kanagawa Prefecture Hamamigaoka(?) High School

Hobbies | Ordering sweets, composing lyrics, raising eels, going to the theater


Events | MVs


As mentioned earlier, the first Readyyy! Project live event happened on the 14th February.On top of Sega revealing the true name of this project as well as the staff and voice actors, there were live performances from the voice actors, singing and dancing to unit songs. In the February event they also revealed one unit’s Music Video, there is a short version available on youtube:

This is RayGlanZ’s music video for their song “GO NOW!”. Song writing, composition and arrangement is done by SHIROSE from pop group WHITE JAM whose credits include creating music for TVXQ (South Korean pop duo), AAA (Japanese pop group), Da-iCE (Japanese male dance and vocal group), and many more.

The music video is done by Dandelion Animation Studio, who you might be familiar with works such as B-Project’s Special Live video and Tsukiuta. the animation’s dance/song segments. All future music videos for Readyyy! Project will be handled by this studio, which is a good choice because their animation and motion capturing is impeccable.

RayGlanZ’s music video will only be up on youtube until 14th March, 2018. Due to the video being popular they extended the time they’ll have the video posted on the channel.

In the second live event on 14th March, they released a short clip for Just 4U’S Music Video for their song “Daiten Futeki ni Koishitai”, hopefully they will release the full version of the MV on the 28th of April where a special event will be held in Harajuku’s Quest Hall (attendance is free, but I think you still have to book).

Full Version of RayGlanZ’s Music Video was released on the official youtube channel but only for a limited time (until 24th April). Sadly I cannot show the music video and I don’t think I’m allowed to reupload. Hopefully they’ll reupload again some time in the future considering it helped people get hyped about Readyyy Project and last time I checked the video gained 69K views in just a couple of days.

—List of scheduled events (past and future):

♦ 14th February, 2018 — First Live Event @ nicofarre (Attendance is free)

♦ 14th March, 2018 — Second Live Event @ nicofarre (Attendance is free)

♦ 14th April, 2018 — Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.0 @ Belle Salle Akihabara – Segafes (Attendance is free)

♦ 28th April, 2018 — Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.1 @ Harajuku Quest Hall (Attendance is free)

♦ 13th May, 2018 — Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.2 @ Yomiuri Hall (Attendance is ¥4,800 per person)

♦ 3rd June, 2018 — Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.3 @ Yomiuri Hall (Attendance is ¥4,800 per person)

16th July, 2018 — Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.4 @ Yomiuri Hall (Attendance is ¥4,800 per person)

*This event will have La-Veritta’s Music Video and will announce some new game information

♦ 26th August. 2018 — Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.5 @ Yomiuri Hall (Attendance is ¥4,800 per person)


Extras


From this point onwards I’ll be updating the post with extra news, tidbits and reports on Readyyy Project, similarly to how I conducted my otome watch post on Toraware no Palm.

Hopefully each subject onwards is in chronological order so it’s easier to skim through to see what is new. So check this part of the post often to see any new updates.


First Live Event (14th February, 2018) Report


So I caved in and got myself a premium membership for nico douga just to watch a timeshift/’archive’ version of the first live event stream. All in all it was pretty interesting and they happened to upload some of the stuff shown in this stream to their youtube account. But for the stuff they didn’t show outside of the stream I’ll just walk you all through it.

The stream was about 2 hours which is pretty long but was worthwhile. It wasn’t a packed house, a few of the seats at the back were empty and I have a feeling that some of the attendees may be the staff/maybe sponsors I dunno 😆 I’m just making assumptions.

The hosts started the show with a teaser trailer to reveal Sega’s latest title/IP “Readyyy Project”. The trailer listed the staff involved as well as list the projects they were involved in, for example: the listed scenario writer is Takeshi Mizuno, who was credited for writing Brothers Conflict and  Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side and the listed character draft illustrator is Ebira who is credited for Fire Emblem Heroes (illustrating Chrom) and Hakoniwa Fools (illustration for a light novel). Production I.G. (Kuroko no Basuke, Haikyuu!!) is in charge of character illustration and character sheets.

They also showed off the backgrounds illustrations for the Project. One of the hosts joked around going “Hmmm… could this be Kamakura” and “No, wait this looks like California”. Overall the visuals they had shown was pretty good, makes me wonder if they’ll use this in the app (of course they will) so there might be a good part of the game that is visual novel based. Here’s some examples of the backgrounds shown:

Most of these places are prolly based on real locations, particularly the two stations, which are real places you can find in Kamakura. The next two images below are key areas, the first one is the idol share house where you act as the dormitory manager and the second background is Dear Production’s building, the production company you/the heroine works at. One of the hosts hinted that Dear Production’s building looks like its ‘Harajuku/Shinjuku’-esque, though I can’t remember if they did confirm that the office building is based somewhere in the metro area.

They then moved on to introduce the voice cast with this special casting video:

It was quite interesting to see their process of going through each newbie voice actor (which I think was their main plan to cast all new voice actors for this project), some of the comments in the stream were going “whoa, scary” because of how harsh the process seemed. It’s nice to seeing behind the scenes of projects like these.

According to the video, they started auditions in September 2017 selecting 50 voice actors from 250 resumes, where from there only 30 people passed from judges. Second round of auditions started in October 2017 where the people who passed showed their skills in reading lines for the characters as well as singing skills while getting critiques and advice from the voice directors. Third round of auditions started in November 2017 where they are put into groups to see how well they bounce off each other and harmonize where in the midst of everything they get an announcement from the big guy upstairs… and after that they introduce the voice actors for SP!CA. Tbh I’m not sure what happened at the end because there should be about 18 voice actors but the video didn’t mention about cutting down from 30 to whatever number in the next audition so *shrugs*

At this point I’m starting to think that this project might go deeper than just an app game from females, that its a voice actor raising project considering how they put so much emphasis on the voice actors and even documenting the process 🤔 But whatever, onto describing the stream as best as I can.

So each group introduces themselves one after the other, each voice actor describes themselves and we get a demo voice reel of them voicing their character followed up by the voice actor’s thoughts on the character before moving onto the next voice actor. Rinse and repeat until every member is introduced so they can do a live performance of their idol unit’s main song. Ngl it was hard to watch considering they had to not only sing live but also dance and move around while holding a microphone which isn’t a great combination because the microphone moves away from the mouth making it hard to hear them and makes the experience kinda cringy but I appreciate their effort, I just wish they were given headset microphones so the performance would be better in quality. Also, considering they’re voice actors first, live performers second, I kinda feel sorry that they were given maybe 2-3 months to prepare these live performances when real idols go through rigorous training before debuting to the public.

But I guess I’ll give them credit that the producers/whoever decided not to make them lip sync the whole song, which would’ve been the easier way out (Rejet does this with their live performers most the time too). Also thankful for the comments on the stream going “Ganbare!”/”You can do it!” during each performance. Some performances were ok, others were better because they didn’t need to dance much and you can hear them better. If you want a digest video of how the performances went you can watch it here:

Even now they’re doing their best going to dance practice for the next event, so I hope they keep growing from now on.

After RayGlanZ’s performance they showed off the Music Video, which you can watch on youtube until 14th March. People in the comments seemed to like the catch call of ‘piripiri ai’ considering it pops up in their song a bunch (even in the chorus) lol. Though tbh my second favorite group would be Maten Rocket considering they have this cute group thing where each member counts down “3, 2, 1, 0” and then “Ignition” at the same time while pointing up. It was especially cute when they all lost their shit going “omg that was perfectly in sync”.

matenrocket.png

After every groups performance, they got everyone back on the stage to say their thank yous and stuff until they were interrupted yet again by the big guy upstairs who has an important surprise for everyone, including the voice actors. The guy announces that next month there will be another live event that will announce new songs, continuation of RayGlanZ’s music video and a release of Just 4U’s music video for their song “Daiten Futeki ni Koishitai”. On top of that, he also announced they have planned to hold monthly live events just like this from now (February) until Summer (possibly June). Which makes me wonder if Summer is the time where they’ll release the mobile game 🤔 Apparently these announcements are big news to the voice actors because they act a bit surprised which makes me go, “omg these people are being stringed along by these people in charge of this project, they’ll prolly be tired from performing every month for the next 3-4 months”.

Anyway the guy who announced all this seems to be the same guy that interrupted them during the audition video. His logo is this:

pman

I looked up 入江P, couldn’t find much except for twitter belonging to an idolmaster fan (hardly think they’re the same people). Also 入江 seems a little too ambiguous to do a proper search so I give up lol. So is his schtick to be the surprise announcement guy that will prolly be incorporated into the story? Who knows.

That’s about it for the first live event report. Gotta wait for 14th March for another event 😆


Second Live Event (14th March, 2018) Report


second live event

I wrote up a report in a separate post, which you can find here. WordPress bugged out while I was typing it out and I tried my best to restore it to how it was before, but there might still be a couple stuff that may seem out of place or things repeating. So I’m sorry if things seem messy.

It’s also pretty long lol.

Next event will be at Segafes on the 14th of April, hopefully they’ll reveal more game stuff.


Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.0 & Readyyy! Go☆ld Channel Vol.1 Report


tsuite

On 14th April, Readyyy! Project had a special stage event at Segafes–a two day event for Sega exclusive franchises and IPs. In addition of the usual performances, we were spoilt with first exclusive viewing of the full version of RayGlanz’s music video for “GO NOW” as well as seeing work in progress in-game stuff.

Few days afterwards on 17th April the start of Readyyy! Go☆ld Channel streams where we get to know the voice actors in a more casual atmosphere.

You can see a more detailed report in my other post which can be found here.


Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.1


On the 28th April, 2018 Readyyy Project had its big stage show and fan meeting at Harajuku Quest Hall. Unfortunately this event was not streamed so I have no idea first hand what happened at the event. Fortunately they released summaries on the twitter account afterwards and even made a twitter momentround up all the announcement tweets. You can also find a report made by the Readyyy Staff here, you can use google translate on the page to get the gist of it.

They had two shows for the day, a daytime show and a nighttime show. From the looks of it they revealed the full version of Just 4U’s Music Video and also announced SP!CA’s MV is being worked on.

Unfortunately, the public outside of those who attended this event won’t be able to see Just 4U’s full MV any time soon, however you can see screenshots of Just 4U’s MV in the report posted on the website (just scroll down a bit).

More information on Readyyy’s songs being released digitally had been announced alongside when they’ll be available on DAM’s karaoke library. From June onwards the debut songs of each unit will be available in DAM’s karaoke library for you to sing. You can also purchase those debut songs (first 5 songs sung by the idol units) starting from the 1st of May from Japanese iTunes, Recochoku, Line Music and other sites. I managed to get all of them and I thoroughly enjoy them, they’re at full length and my favs would be BEAT IN LOVE, GO NOW and Daitan Futeki ni Koishitai. I hope they’ll release the second batch of songs digitally soon because there are some gems in there too. If you want to purchase theses songs you may need a Japanese apple ID and have to purchase japanese itunes prepaid cards.

They also performed their new batch of songs (which would be the third song for each unit). I’ll list them off:

♦ SP!CA – “MY BEST FRIENDS” 

Lyrics, composition and arrangement by Ryota Fukuoka (credited for Kis-My-Ft2’s “Tomo + Jou, Kuttsukete”, lol’s “BOY FRIEND” and Ketsumeishi’s “Kimi to Deatte”, etc)

♦ Maten Rocket – “Pendulum”

Lyrics, composition and arrangement by Macaroni&Cheese (credited for TV anime One Piece’s theme song “HANDS UP!”, etc)

♦ Just 4U – “Four JUMP”

Lyrics and composition by Kazuaki Yamashita (credited for providing music to Kis-My-Ft2, Tackey & Tsubasa and V6, etc)

Arrangement by Tsubasa Takada

♦ RayGlanZ – “Shining magic”

Lyrics by YHANAEL (credited for providing music to TWICE, Johnny’s West, 2PM)

Composition and arrangement by Daisuke”D.I”Imai (credited for providing music to AI, BoA, CHEMISTRY, May J. and Kumi Koda)

♦ La-Veritta – “Houshou”

Lyrics, composition and arrangement by Gin (BUSTED ROSE) (credited for providing music for TV anime “Pop Team Epic”, especially the opening song as well as many others)

Plus a debut of the song sung by all characters/voice actors:

♦  18 people chorus – “Tatta Hitotsu no Arigatou”

Lyrics and composition by Kurousa-P (credited for creating the well-known Hatsune Miku song “Senbonzakura” as well as many others)

Arrangement by Yasutaka Kume

After each show fans were treated to a high five by each cast member. If you couldn’t make it, the twitter provided a little video where you can virtually high five everyone haha.

Its a bit tempting to go to these events because everything they’re revealing is kept behind closed doors and I really want to hear the new songs but alas… I’ll just have to wait. I’m also curious when they’ll show all the MVs again, maybe they’ll sell it in a separate DVD or have the 3D MVs appear in-game or something because its a shame just hiding them away.


Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.2


On 13th May, 2018 Readyyy had it’s second stage event, this time at Yomiuri Hall (you have to pay to attend). Again, this event wasn’t broadcasted live so it was another closed door event.

They announced a fourth stage event at Yomiuri Hall on 16th July. Kinda curious about this event because it has in brackets “monday” and “congratulation/celebration” next to the date so I wonder what they’re celebrating about. More information will be revealed in this months Go☆ld Channel on 20th May. It’s also unknown as of now whether or not this is a paid event.

More information on the karaoke releases: from 7th June the debut songs will be distributed sequentially to DAM karaoke and from 12th June the whole country can sing the debut songs lol.

Because the event took place on the same day as Genshin Shimizu‘s birthday everyone in the hall got to shout out happy birthday to him/his voice actor which was pretty cute.

Readyyy hasn’t published their own event report yet so I’m not 100% sure what happened during the event but there are other online articles summarising what happened as well as having some screenshots for the SP!CA MV.

You can click on the link in the tweet above to get a clue about what happened in this month’s stage event but to sum up the stuff I missed out from this article: a short version of SP!CA’s MV was shown off, a second volume CD will be purchasable at June’s stage event (the songs included in the CD will be the second batch of songs e.g. Just 4U’s “DOKI DOKI” and La-Veritta’s “COLOR”) and also they will be selling special goods at each stage event from here on out.

New goods now include acrylic charms and a towel. Gold Stage Vol.1 originally sold badges and an acrylic plate light, so these new goods will be a good addition to the merch line.


Readyyy! Go☆ld Channel Vol.2


Skip to 11:45 to start the stream

I almost forgot that this was being streamed (turns out I missed on some bits at the start), as promised Go☆ld Channel Vol.2 was live streamed to youtube, nicodouga, periscope etc on the 20th of May. To be honest the youtube and periscope streams were of better image quality as nicodouga so I guess I’ll be cancelling my premium account for nicodouga lol.

First things first, they go through each voice actor and have them say what their preferred name/nickname will be so feel free to call them by that. I’ll go in the order the stream went with (as well as adding pictures for each voice actor in case it’s hard to tell who voices which character):

yukisakakihara

 |

Yuki Sakakihara (voices Uta Kamijo) | Nickname: Yuki-kun

|

fumiyatanaka

 |

Fumiya Tanaka (voices Genshin Shimizu) | Nickname: Fumiya-kun or Fumiya-san

|

shumakonoe

 |

Shuma Konoe (voices Touya Munakata) | Nickname: Shuma

|

masamuono

|

Masamu Ono (voices Chihiro Usui) | Nickname: Ono-kun, Masamu, Onomu or whatever (something about Yami is mentioned)

|

katsuyuki miura

|

Katsuyuki Miura (voices Ango Kousaka) | Nickname: Anything other than Youkai-miso-namé(?)

|

ryuichisawada

|

Ryuichi Sawada (voices Soushi Fujiwara) | Nickname: Sawa-Sawa

|

tomohiroohmachi

|

Tomohiro Ohmachi (voices Zen Iseya) | Nickname: Macchi

|

shuichiroumeda

|

Shuichiro Umeda (voices Aki Takachiho) | Nickname: Ume-chan, Umeko or anything else

|

sonosukehattori

|

Sonosuke Hattori (voices Junosuke Sanada) | Nickname: Sou-chan, Sou-kun, Sonosuke, Nosuke etc

|

tetsueisumiya

 |

Tetsuei Sumiya (voices Mitsuki Kuze) | Nickname: Tecchan (or ass hair/ケツ毛–tho as a joke)

|

norihitohase

 |

Norihito Hase (voices Samon Nishikido) | Nickname: Hase-kun, Hase-san or anything you’d like

|

hayatokomiya

 |

Hayato Komiya (voices Hiro Igarashi) | Nickname: Hayato, Komiya-kun as well as KomiHaya

|

atsushiendo

|

Atsushi Endo (voices Azusa Konno) | Nickname: God・Of・Atsushi, or just plain old Atsushi-chan etc

|

noriakikanze

Noriaki Kanze (voices Takumi Kurumizawa) | Nickname: Norikan, Noriaki, Kanze, etc

|

harutokuroki

Haruto Kuroki (voices Tatsuma Akashi) | Nickname: Kuroki or Kurokki

|

isseifuruta

 |

Issei Furuta (voices Sui Yanagawa) | Nickname: Issei, Isseiman, Honorary Chairman of Acorns

|

shunyasuda

Shun Yasuda (voices Komugi Ayasaki) | Nickname: Shunshun, Shun-chan, Shun-san, Shun-kun, etc

|

taikibito

 |

Taiki Bito (voices Riku Orikasa) | Nickname: Bito-kun, Taiki-kun

|

Now that thats out of the way, I think I can prolly stop coaching through what happens in the video because you can just see it for yourself in the video above haha.

Ngl I really like watching these Gold Channel streams that happen once a month, I get a good laugh out of it but I guess that’s me whenever I watch a stream (I just laugh really hard for some reason whenever its a live stream).

Anyway enjoy the video. Also keep watching the video after 1:35:45 because there’s a special segment where the Just 4U crew try to promote Taiki Bito so he can make some friends (as well as get some oniichans).


Readyyy! Go☆ld Stage Vol.3


On June 3rd Readyyy had another event at Yomiuri Hall. I wasn’t there so I don’t know 100% what happened but I can guess it had songs, narration and on-stage script reading. There are some event reports that have better detail on what happened so I’ll link them:

4Gamer has a good and thorough event report, going through everything chronologically

■ otomelab has a report mainly focusing on what was announced in terms of game news and music news, not mentioning the live performance segments etc

So the guys have to perform 3 songs each during the event plus the encore performance of singing the 18 people chorus song by Kurousa-P. Damn these boys are working hard 😂 The theme of their on-stage live reading is “A moment before lessons”, as well as having a variety corner much later in the event where the boys have to go through a memory quiz to get points, the team/unit with the highest score gets the chance to have a 10 minute corner in this month’s Gold Channel stream–which would explain why Just 4U had a corner at the end of last month’s Gold Channel stream lol.

Anyway with that part out the way here’s some of the big announcements at this event.

♦ First Look at Game Information (Volume 1)

Thankfully Readyyy uploaded a video on youtube about the game info. Seems like they’ll come in volumes each month, this one being the first and it focuses on the ‘producer’ part of gameplay where the game flow goes like this:

Everyday (Story) →  Lesson → Idol Activities

Everyday part is story segments and it seems like Production I.G. will be illustrating the character sprites, giving it a more ‘anime’ look with the simple cell shading etc. I dunno if I’m a fan of it, I kinda prefer Ebira’s/Ebila’s artwork because their shading gives the characters more life but the video does warn that everything in the video is still a work in progress and may not be the finalised version. Either way, we’ll see. Lesson part is making your idols WERK and gain them stats to make the stronk and all of this is illustrated by cute chibi 3D models. Next is Idol Activities which involves your boys performing their song (with choreography done by the chibis) and their success depends on your support–which may be done through pressing different buttons. Again, this is not a rhythm game, they stated a while back that it will not be a rhythm game. I’ve seen a couple of twitter mutuals mention that the Idol Activities part is similar to how mobage idolm@ster handle their idol gameplay (not the rhythm game versions of the imas series) and maybe Readyyy is going down that path with the gameplay so it’ll be interesting to play. The chibi 3D models kinda remind me of BoyKira and kinda makes me wish for regular sized 3D models but we can’t have it all I guess haha.

♦ Extended look at SP!CA’s Music Video

Thankfully they uploaded it on twitter for us to see, of course it’s not the source video just the event version lol, still it looks good. Sasuga Dandelion Animation Studio. You can view screenshots of the MV in the 4Gamer link I posted a few paragraphs above this.

Youtube version here:

They will show off the full versions of all 3 units’ MVs in the next Gold Stage event that is happening on 16th of July. This will include RayGlanZ, Just 4U and SP!CA’s Music Videos. La-Veritta‘s Music Video will have a little teaser on the July event as well.

♦ Second volume unit songs

Second volume/batch of unit songs are now available for digital purchase on iTunes, Recochoku, Line Music and other sites. I had been informed a couple of days ago you can also get Readyyy songs via Spotify. These songs will also be available for DAM karaoke from July onwards.

♦ Future announcements

Gold Stage Vol.4 (16th July) will announce more game information, show a short teaser for La-Veritta’s MV as well as selling more new goods. I think in Vol.3 of Gold Stage the audience could get special fans (like the ones that have words on it like “piripiri shite” which is cute), they also sold a new set of tin badges with new illustration as well as a tote bag. What I would give to attend those events lol.

Next Gold Channel will be on 17th June.

There also might be some new information to be released on 26th August, whether it be another event or something different is unknown, but it seems like something big might happen on that date.


Readyyy! Go★ld Channel Vol.3 & Readyyy! Go★ld Stage Vol.4


logo_Readyyy_eventlogo_vol4_waifu2x_art_noise2_tta_1

You can find the report here.


Website Updates


On 22nd February they have added character voice samples which you can listen to on each character profile, click here for character profiles. The samples out right now are just the one-liners used in the character introduction video, so maybe they’ll add some more in the future.

They also uploaded short versions of unit songs to the front page of the website: Maten Rocket‘s ” Kimi ga Mita Sora wa” and RayGlanZ‘s “GO NOW!”. The other unit songs will release separately: SP!CA‘s unit song will release on 1st March, Just 4U‘s unit song will release on 5th March and La-veritta‘s unit song will release on 8th March. These short versions will stay on the website until 14th March. You can check them out by clicking this link/going to the official website and scroll down for a bit and click play on one of those buttons.

On 25th February they uploaded their own report on the first live event, you can check it out here if you want to see some clearer pictures of the boys on stage performing. You can google translate the page if you want to read their report.


Youtube Updates


Over the past two months they have been uploading cast interviews after they had landed the audition. If you’re interested in seeing your fav voice actor’s thoughts on getting the role and other stuff then check out the playlist here. It was interesting to see in the videos that at the time idol unit names were unknown (I think one of the voice actors called the idol unit “unit B” or something) but they still had character names and rough character design drafts to go on. Also its pretty uplifting seeing some of them get excited over getting the role, kinda brings a tear to my eye.

They have also been uploading videos of voiced scenes of each idol unit to show off how each unit’s dynamic is like with small banter and other interactions. These scenes were also used for a live reading during the Second Live Event. I’ll add them down below (list of videos is not complete yet):

SP!CA

Maten Rocket

Just 4U

RayGlanZ

break

May 18th they released videos promoting the second CDs that will be on sale in the upcoming events (Gold Stage Vol.3 and onwards), these videos include cast talk as well as a preview of the second new songs. They created a playlist on their channel so check it out:

By purchasing the second CD at the event you get the chance to interchange the CD cover illustration between all 5 of the units (E.g. you could have RayGlanZ as the cover of your CD). Alas, we gaijin can’t get these CDs so easily, that is unless we travel to japan, get tickets to the events and buy it in person lol. Maybe there’s people on the internet reselling the CDs they got at the event, but it might be for a higher price haha.


After Thoughts | Links


This project does look promising, especially with Sega behind it (though this could be either a good thing or a bad thing). It does seem like Sega is putting some effort into this project, considering most companies don’t care about catering to the female audience. You’ve got Sega hiring Dandelion Animation Studio to do the MVs, which probably won’t be cheap considering all the details they put into that short MV, as well as hiring some good composers with a background in creating music for pop groups and somewhere along the line they have Production I.G. in there to help with this project.

Though I would say that they are taking a risk at hiring a big cast of fresh faced voice actors considering most projects would go for well-known voice actors with a sprinkle of new voice actors because that would draw in a crowd considering how fanatic people can get over their favorite voice actor. Even though its a risk, it is quite a commendable move to hire these voice actors for such an ambitious project as this may well be the launch pad they’ve been waiting for into the voice acting industry. Some of them have good singing voices too, especially those displayed in RayGlanZ’s MV.

In a way, it kind of feels like Sega is the one raising these voice actors to be idols, considering they get them all dressed up similarly to the characters they’re voicing as well as getting them to preform live in front of others. They even have their very own twitter accounts made just for this project, in a few tweets they’re posting how they’re practicing their dance moves and it’s somewhat interesting seeing unknown voice actors get this kind of leverage. At the end of the day, Sega isn’t just making a 2D idol project, they’re kind of making real life idols too (in a way).

Here’s hoping these voice actors will gain a lot of experience and fans from this project. Makes me think of Tasuku Hatanaka and Shunsuke Takeuchi, where Hatanaka only got a few ‘background character’ roles until he got big roles and gaining traction in the voice acting world and the same goes for Takeuchi (though Takeuchi got his first break as Producer in Idolmaster Cinderella Girls anime, which may be his iconic role yet). The two of them seem to have grown as voice actors thanks to the opportunities they’ve been given.

Anyway, with this much effort Sega is banking on this project, it kind of makes me wish that they would start a sub-division dedicated to making contents for the female audience and maybe even make console games that aren’t visual novels and have some fun gameplay. But I think that’s just a bit too far-fetched at this moment, but hey, maybe my wish/dream may actually come true sooner than I thought.

Make sure to keep an eye on this post as I will be updating whenever something significant happens. I’ll try to tweet the updates on my blog announcement twitter account, so be sure to follow (maybe).

Meanwhile here are some official links that you can follow for new content:

Please Note: I cannot update this post as it lags my computer whenever I try to edit in new information. However I still do keep writing separate update posts on Readyyy!, you can check them out by going into my readyyy! tag.

Also shout out to the unofficial english readyyy! twitter account, they post translations and news announcements (and most definitely do a better job than me).

9 thoughts on “[Otome Watch] Sega’s Upcoming “Readyyy!” Project – An Idol Raising Project”

  1. Gotta say I’m definitely pleasantly surprised by the cast of VAs. I like that they chose to utilize newer voice actors, as I think right now maybe the otome scene is a big stagnant in terms of voices (as in, it’s ALWAYS the same seiyuus and as much as I love them, sometimes variety is a little nice ya know). Hopefully this will propel them into bigger projects and mix up the VA scene a bit. It’s always nice to have a little fresh blood around haha (ㆁᴗㆁ✿)

    I’m admittedly mildly sick of idol games right now but I think I’ll still give this one a whirl~ mostly for those fresh new seiyuu (◉◞౪◟◉ )

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yeah, tbh idol stuff is almost everywhere i go lol. If its a good rhythm game like idolmaster cinderella girls starlight stage that has good 3D models that you can dress up then im up for it lol.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Hello, first I would like to thank you for translating whats going on for the upcoming Readyyy project, because I can’t understand Japanese :’D… They haven’t announced yet when they’ll release the app right??

    Like

    1. They haven’t announced the release but I’m hoping it’ll be released Summer 2018 because they’ve planned promotional events until summer and that’s usually the best time to release an app. So fingers crossed it’ll be some time this year!

      Like

  3. Thanks for translating and keeping up with all the events! I’m really excited to see what the game has to offer, but the songs alone are enough to make me want to play! Also, for Riku’s profile, I think “made in complex” might be “maiden complex” based on his hobbies.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks for the correction! 😂 I’ll try to rectify it ASAP.
      I don’t think they’ll announce anything about the game/app in June, but it seems like July they have something planned during the monthly event so I can’t wait for the news 😊

      Like

  4. thank you for these report updates and translations i’m super thankfully and appreciate it!! learn so much about the project and can’t wait till i can play the game! <333 this is like the readypro bible! X"""D 2 get READy for the series

    Like

Comments are closed.