i read the shinsoku COD story last, so here's a summary and my own thoughts on shinsoku's story writing. it was just google translated but it's coherent enough, however i have glossed over and condensed some points so please read the story itself to form your own opinion. thank you to izzy for letting me borrow her account.
summary
shinsoku are spying on a group of people (producer, a teacher, a student, and an old man) talking in a school classroom. the school is closing soon, and it seems that producer/the teacher/the student want to end it off with a memorable event. however, the old man is concerned that doing so would bring in a lot of rowdy people since the school has so many yankees.
flashback to months ago: shinsoku got another work request from the silver accessory company that hired them previously (this refers to jet-black shadow live. in that event, they learned to handle the production of the lives themselves but it was a really boring story not worth reading).
the company lets shinsoku do whatever they want for the PV lol, so they try hard to decide on a theme.
there's a commotion outside, so everyone goes to check. it's a student council president from another school asking to see shinsoku. the president wants shinsoku to perform at his school's graduation ceremony since the school is closing a the end of the year, but he's asking 315pro without having permission from the school first. everyone thinks he's getting a bit ahead of himself. the president runs off without telling 315pro his name or school's name.
a few days later, shinsoku are out on the street, talking about how they can rent the office roof to practice their upcoming radio show and come up with a theme for the jewlery company song/PV. they talk about how the company just wants them to do an exciting theme and discuss how all of their past events were exciting in their own ways despite the different themes. suzaku essentially brings up a yankee theme and genbus like yeah that could work but everyone else has been switching shit up lately we can consider doing something different too. so they keep thinking on it.
they see the student council president go into the office with their teacher. the teacher made the president apologize for being so brash. the school can't hold the graduation live since they don't have the equipment and time and stuff.
shinsoku go to the roof to practice and brainstorm but they don't have any new ideas. after that they're on the street again and bump into hayato. they tell hayato about their problems coming up with a unique idea for the PR that still retains the excitement that the company wants. hayato sums up shinsoku's image as "firey youth" and suggests keeping that image while adding another theme on top of it like "entrance ceremony" or "sakura" or "graduation".
suddenly, suzaku sees an old guy on the street and they all go help him out (the old guy thought shinsoku were hayato's bullies lol). once they get the old guy to his destination, they part ways.
the next day on the radio show, the MC introduces genbu and suzaku and starts asking them questions.
first question is asking about their hairstyle and what their favorite hair product is, and they recommend the hair wax from BNM.
second question asks if suzaku also cooks like genbu does, and what their preferences are, and suzaku mentioned how he learned about hamburgers from asselin in the gourmet hunter event, but it was kinda a mess... afterwards, he had tried to help his mom cook but he flopped so bad that his mom basically got pissed lol.
third question is about LOVE... it's from someone who has a crush on a guy with a rough personality like shinsoku, so they're asking the two for help on how to confess (or just get along with him). suzaku basically replies that the best way to get along is to talk honestly with each other and then starts going off about how his bond with genbu got closer after they talked to each other more and more... he gets really fired up and forgets that it's supposed to be love advice lol (i can't remember the exact wording but he's like "talk honestly... with your fist!!" and genbu is like "dude they're asking about romance tips...").
after the radio session, they get to discussing how since it's spring, people are often talking about stuff like graduation... suzaku brings up the school that's closing down. while they're sad they can't do anything about it directly, genbu suggests that they make a song with the theme of graduation for the jewelery company's PV so they can support the closing school indirectly.
they're at the office when they see the teacher from the closing school outside. they go inside and tell producer about their graduation theme idea for the song. producer says it's a great idea and then reveals he's planning a surprise live... his idea was to rent the gymnasium of the school that's closing down and use that to film the PV of the jewelery company PR, basically letting them kill two birds with one stone. both the school and the sponsor already agreed.
back in the present day: shinsoku are spying in at the school. even though they got permission from everyone, the town chairman (an old man) doesn't want them to perform because it might attract a bunch of yankees to the area and get rowdy.
the teacher tries to plead his case by insisting that thanks to shinsoku, a lot of yankees have gotten nicer and are helping around town and shit lol... the student council kid gets emotional realizing his teacher is supporting him so much.
but the town chairman is still unconvinced, talking about how he worries it'll be like the yankees of the past... suzaku gets fed up and bursts into the room!!! (the artwork at this point is super cool and cute)
there, he recognizes the town chairman as the lost old guy they helped on the street the other day. basically they all plead their case again. since the town chairman has seen what good kids shinsoku are, he says that he'll bring it up in the town meeting again.
a few weeks later, it's time to start the graduation ceremony surprise live. the town chairman comes in and says he shouldn't've been so prejudiced against yankees etc lol and shinsoku go up on stage.
before they perform the new song, they do a short speech about the troubles that led up to being able to perform today and they're like it's thanks to everyone's efforts that we were able to hold this, including the efforts of everyone in the crowd who volunteer and help people around town (thus increasing their trust with the townfolk which was the reason they were allowed to hold the live in the end)
after the live, the student council president talks about how sad he's gonna be to leave the school and how he realized after all that the teacher was really kind. and he talks about how shinsoku inspired him and everybody to be better people etc. etc. etc.
thoughts
after everything i heard about the long-length stories of stories of FRAME, C.FIRST, beit, kogado... i'm really disappointed at how mid the shinsoku story was. it doesn't feel much different from a regular moba story. it felt like way too straightforward and convenient and there was nothing to really mull on outside of the idea of "shinsoku look bad on the surface but are actually nice" which i think has already been done better in aside famille. i guess i complained about devil's rock touching on that subject too briefly, but... this also felt like a load of nothing.
i think the story would've been more interesting if they went for one of these routes:
shinsoku tried to go ahead with the live even without school approval, and learned a lesson about how it's kinda weird and selfish to mix a commercial company's business with their personal interest in giving this random school a good send-off.
everything got approved, but the town chairman thing never happened, so shinsoku held a low-budged live and showed cool WDGAF yankee spirit, even if it meant disturbing the townspeople (which is opposite the point of the story but i'm gonna be honest it's so ??? to have the yankee idols be this subject to authority. they're not beating up random people on the street, it's fucking HOA noise restrictions).
shinsoku's own ouken high was closing down and they had to deal with drama regarding that instead of it being some other NPC's school. the reason i suggest this love-live-esque situation is that sideM has literally had a an event where the idols perform for a school that's closing down in the past (some mstage christmas event), so it just felt like deja vu.
or like, anything else.
i talked about it with yata and got him to read three kingdoms and aside famille, two of my favorite sideM events from 2017. he brought up the interesting point that pre-saisuta, sideM handled its stories very indirectly. using aside famille as an example, the game progresses kazuki's relationship with his father by having F-LAGS perform in a PV of his 'father's' work, rather than having kazuki talk to his dad in-person. it's not just because of the nature of kazuki and his dad itself, but because all pre-saisuta stories never showed NPC dialogue (in F-LAGS's saisuta story, kazuki talks directly to his dad in the very second chapter haha).
while i thought the shinsoku COD was weak in comparison to the other CODs/fancoms, it's also something that only could have been done post-saisuta. not just due to the length and voice acting, but because the NPCs themselves make for such an important part of the story. in fact, i think the emotional core of the COD was 1) the student council president realizing how much his teacher cared about the students, and 2) the student council president telling shinsoku how they influenced his life. those elements wouldn't be possible back in sideMoba.
since it's a story where the 'heart' is in dialogue and not actions, proper translation and localization matters a lot IMO. especially since it's shinsoku ikkon whose manner of speech never reads naturally from machine translation alone. maybe if someone ever translates it fully i'll find myself liking it a ton. sorry for being fickle.
well, i'm already liking it better the more i write about it. really, i don't think there's anything wrong with it in itself, it's only disappointing compared to what i heard of the other CODs. LOL. there's nothing wrong with a story just being cute and straightforward! the appeal is in the dialogue and interactions, not what happens overall!... is what i want to think, but...
i don't feel like the COD set down any plot points for future stories like beit/kogado's did, but we already know shinsoku fancom is going to be about suzaku and minori, so i'm looking forward to that.
yata mentioned that he thought project sekai's wonderlands x showtime had the best writing in their game. apparently their overall storyline progresses well, with plot threads continuously being resolved and opened across multiple events. in contrast, sideM characters have been stuck with the same overarching goal for a decade. as he mentioned, it's something that live service games do in general, but i also think idolmaster in particular is very dedicated to providing the 'slice of life' atmosphere where anyone can jump in and learn a little bit about any idol at any time.
while i really do like this sort of writing, i also hope to see shinsoku make progression in their overall story after so long, whether that's more focus on suzaku's dad or him finding out he met minori years ago. gimme something new!