Interest
A3 May Be Japan's Next Big Male-Idol Hit
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Japan has no shortage of male idol games starring gorgeous characters voiced by popular male voice actors. The ones that hit it big get their own anime tie-ins, a subgenre that has populated season after season recently. Utano Princesama remains one of the largest, while Marginal #4, B-PROJECT, Tsukiuta. THE ANIMATION, and IDOLiSH7 also have their own fanbase. Whether idol anime and games are your cup of tea or not, the trend shows no signs of slowing down.
The latest idol mobile game A3! shows just how strong the trend is in Japan. The "ikemen-raising" game launched on Friday and was downloaded over 800,000 times in three days. 300,000 of those downloads took place on its launch day.
The free-to-play game stars a stable of aspiring actors. The characters are separated into four troupes, each one referencing a particular season. The player controls the troupe's director and is responsible for "raising" each member but of course there's also plenty of romance to go along with it.
The game stars a host of popular voice actors including Shintarō Asanuma, Takuya Eguchi, Ryōtarō Okiayu, Ren Ozawa, Tetsuya Kakihara, Taiten Kusunoki, Katsuyuki Konishi, Atsushi Tamaru, Toshiyuki Toyonaga, and Yoshitaka Yamaya.
Four tie-in music CDs, one for each troupe, were released before the game launched. The CDS might take some of the credit for the game's hype; the staff have signed on some impressive musical talent. The music team includes Masayoshi Ōishi (Ace of Diamond, Overlord), Yuki Kimura (Naruto Shippūden: Blood Prison), Hige Driver (Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun), former OLDCODEX member R.O.N, Elements Garden's Asuka Oda and Ryōta Suemasu, Takeyuki Tonegawa, Round Table's Katsutoshi Kitagawa, Yuyoyuppe, and TWEEDEES' Reiji Okii.
Source: Animate Times
