Mimi Nagisa, formerly a member of the idol group Stella, used to dream of stardom. But after Stella dissolved, she stopped dreaming and woke up. Now she works a dead-end job in a convenience store to pay for her idol otaku habits while lying to her family that she's job-seeking. Although her life at present is meager and pathetic, she has convinced herself that she isn't special enough to excel the way she wants to.
That is, until she attends a handshake event with up-and-coming idol Ibuki Nanakusa, a member of Sugar Smile. Shockingly, Ibuki recognizes Mimi as the one who inspired her to become an idol. Ibuki confesses that she's going to leave her own group behind and try out for a prestigious idol audition, the Super Star Ship, held by world-famous solo artist Aria Otoboshi. And, what's more, Ibuki wants Mimi to audition with her. Seizing on the chance to start again, Mimi agrees and the two girls set off for the audition.
Unfortunately for them, Aria is staging a survival audition. Taking a page from the Reality TV playbook, the sixteen best candidates are herded onto a cruise ship, forced to compete against each other, and whittled down until only the five best remain. Will these two girls be able to realize their dreams together when they find themselves split apart by competition?
IDOL x IDOL STORY! is a seinen manga by Shotaro Tokuno. It has been published on Comic Fuz (Houbunsha's online-only brand) since 2022.
IDOL x IDOL STORY! contains examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Tokuno was a professional 3D modeler, and his detailed, precise backgrounds are clearly 3D models with NPRnote shaders applied to them.
- Advertising Campaigns: Houbunsha released a promotional video to promote the manga narrated by Naomi Ozora.
- Age Insecurity: In chapter 33.5, Nyaako-sensei and Aria — two professionals in the idol industry — declare that they are forever 14 years old, in much the same way as Kikuko Inoue.
- Alliterative Name: Hitoe's full name is Hitoto Hitoe, so her friends call her Hitohito.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: At Hibana's graduation ceremony, her mom shouts to everybody in earshot that Hibana's going to be on a TV show and asks her to sing an idol song for everybody. Her brother, who has apparently been practicing his rapping skills, beatboxes for her. Hibana yells at them to stop embarrassing her.
- Bait-and-Switch: During the second competition arc, Ritsu is set up as a polite, yet cold and serious girl with personal baggage and a desire to prove herself, who looks like she's going to be a thorn in Mimi's side. Then she's revealed to be a relaxed, cheerful goofball who smuggles cans of beer into the bedroom so they can drink, and it's Yuuri who proves to be the thorn in Mimi's side.
- Bedmate Reveal: In chapter 11, Ibuki wakes up to find Shuri snuggling with her in her bed.
- Big "YES!": When Suzu asks Mimi to share a room with her, and Mimi agrees, Suzu thinks an enormous "HELL YEAH!"
- Birds of a Feather: Mimi and Ibuki are both extremely hard workers who pushed their idol units to excel, only to make the atmosphere worse and alienate them from their unit members.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- On the outside, Yuuri seems to be an attentive and caring sister to Tsumugi. However, flashbacks reveal she was very resentful of Tsumugi for having asthma, which caused the family to move to the middle of nowhere in pursuit of cleaner air and ruined Yuuri's plan to become an idol. When she's alone with Tsumugi, she gaslights her little sister into thinking everybody else will abandon her and that she can't trust anybody.
- In chapter 26, she acts sweet and helpful, but politely counters Mimi's authority in a way that makes everybody else break out in a nervous sweat.
- Bland-Name Product: In chapter 2, Mimi and Ibuki have a drink at Starbox Coffee.
- Camp: Tsubasa Otoboshi (one of the rare male characters in the manga) is a fey pretty boy who wears a plaid suit, has a catty tone of voice and a queeny bearing, sits cross-legged like a woman, and carries a tiny dog around with him.
- Can't Catch Up: Mimi is 22 years old (she barely met the cutoff date for the Starship) and horribly out of shape, while Ibuki is 17 and extremely fit thanks to her training regimen. Consequently, after they submit their videos for the first stage selection, Ibuki is in first place while Mimi is dead-last at fiftieth. It's a very real possibility that Mimi simply won't be able to catch up to Ibuki in time to win the competition.
- Chronic Self-Deprecation: Suzu has zero self-esteem, no friends, and is often convinced people are laughing at her behind her back. When she places 7th (of 16) in the first competition, she starts clapping and looking around to congratulate the person in question before it sinks in that it's her.Aria: Please have confidence. You are stellar and worthy to stand here with everybody else. Your performance today is the proof of your charm.Suzu: Th- Thank you very much, ma'am!
- Combat Commentator: Since manga is a static, visual medium, the characters have to explain things about the idols' performance for the benefit of the audience, such as when Mimi narrates how Ibuki switched from a happy song to an depressing song to take advantage of the depressing mood in chapter 3.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Aria's older brother Tsubasa is revealed to be a shady character who colluded with talent agencies to make money and tries to force Aria to fix the competition. Since he controls the company and owns the cruise ship, there's not much Aria can do about it.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Initially, Mimi and Karin don't get along. However, after she's humbled by tripping on stage in the first concert, Karin gives Mimi's team some backhanded encouragement to ease their nerves. From that point on, while she's generally aloof, she provides useful, practical advice to help Mimi.
- Developing Doomed Characters: There are sixteen candidates and only five available idol slots. Tokuno makes sure to give each girl an extensive Flashback B-Plot exploring who they are and why they're competing, even though realistically 2/3rds of them won't make the cut.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Mimi quit being an idol, and now she works in a convenience store solely to earn money to support buying idol merch and tickets. She muses to herself that she'd make more money working at a company, but then she shoots it down because she wouldn't have enough time to enjoy being an idol otaku. This is how Ibuki finds her after Mimi runs away from the Sugar Smile handshake event.
- Flashback B-Plot: Every few chapters, the manga will focus on one prospective idol and segue into a flashback detailing their history and why they've decided to apply for Starship. The flashbacks are indicated by a black background behind the panels, rather than a white one.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Ibuki and Mimi first met during a handshake event for Stella, but Mimi totally forgot about it until after they meet again in the present.
- Gamer Chick: According to her profile, Hibana likes fighting games. It fits with her Tomboyish personality.
- Greek Chorus:
- In chapter 1, we focus on two random idol otaku standing in line to greet Ibuki behind Mimi so they can provide exposition about Mimi and Stella.
- The idol Aria Otoboshi and her producer Kaede Kokonoe watch the candidates through the cameras and comment on the proceedings.
- Hard Work Fallacy: Mimi and her co-idols in Stella put everything they had into performing, and still failed. This leads Mimi to conclude she just doesn't have what it takes to be a charismatic idol — but Ibuki begs to differ.
- Hero of Another Story: During the first competition, Ritsu's team is made up entirely of girls who haven't received any backstory or development (aside from Yuuri, who gets a little bit as filtered through her sister's POV). All the other teams get chapter-long stories showing how hard they've struggled, while the performance of Ritsu's team is glossed over in a handful of panels and just says, "They're really, really good."
- Hypocrite: In chapter 8, Karin declares that she doesn't accept the rankings that Mimi assigned ... and when it comes time to pick other girls to form a unit, she picks the three at the top of Mimi's ranking.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Although Mei has talent, she was passed over at her idol academy on the grounds that she has no individuality. Since then, her lack of uniqueness has become a major sticking point for her.
- The Idiot from Osaka: Hibana is technically from Hiroshima and not Osaka, but she still has many traits of this trope. While she isn't dumb per se, her idol application in chapter 8.5 specifically describes her as "unrefined". Her reason for participating has a very folksy tone, her profile picture is fairly fiery (not to mention her red hair), and her hobby is fighting games.
- Idol Genre: It's a story about wannabe idols, although it also takes inspiration from the cutthroat world of Reality TV too, where the emphasis is on pitting the idol candidates against each other and eliminating them one by one.
- Implausible Hair Color: Although it doesn't rise to the level of World of Technicolor Hair, Japanese hair colors in the manga include lilac, blonde, rose, red, brown, and black. Based on Ibuki's comment in chapter 10 that she has a thing for black-haired girls, this isn't just an effect to make them stand out — they really do have those hair colors.
- Improbably Female Cast:
- Downplayed, compared to Tokuno's work in Manga Time Kirara, where a video game company had an exclusively-female employee roster. Although the bulk of the characters in this series are female, it doesn't shy away from showing male idol fans, and the dance instructors aboard Starship are male. We even catch a brief glimpse of Mimi's dad in chapter 5 — halfway out of frame, standing behind a doorway, his face hidden while he cries his eyes out, natch.
- Tokuno gets increasingly comfortable at defying this as he goes along, to the point of including full backal male nudity — something which will never, ever be shown in Manga Time Kirara.
- Ironic Name: Koyuki's name contains "yuki", or courage. The girl herself is generally awkward, twitchy, and nervous.
- Irony: The platinum blonde Mei complains that she doesn't stand out and isn't unique ... while sitting in school, surrounded by students with authentic Japanese (i.e. jet black) hair colors.
- It's All About Me: Mei spent so much time thinking about herself and her own problems that she didn't devote any attention to her unit. She acknowledges this and gracefully accepts her elimination.
- The Jinx: In chapter 24, appropriately titled "A Jinx", Hitohito tells Ibuki about Ritsu's backstory. Apparently she's been on the cusp of debuting since middle school (she's 21 now). Yet every single time she was about to, some kind of scandal, controversy, or incident occurred that torpedoed her chances. Her reputation is so bad that other girls were terrified of debuting with her, since they knew it would end poorly.
- Large Ham: When the extremely buff Max Takeyama first appears to train the Black Stars, he shouts all his dialogue in bold print while striking bodybuilder poses.
- Literal-Minded: In chapter 1, when Mimi's sister finds evidence she went to an idol concert and Mimo denies it, her sister says Mimi reeks of otaku. Mimi thinks she means it literally and sniffs her outfit, inadvertantly revealing she went to the concert after all.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": When Karin and Mei accidentally bump into each other while performing "Pepper Berry", it elicits a page and a half of shocked gasps from the others.
- Meaningful Name: The red-headed Hibana's surname contains the word "aka", which means red.
- My Greatest Failure:
- Stella's failure led Mimi — convinced she doesn't have the charisma to become a famous idol — to withdraw from the spotlight, give up her dreams, and take up a dead-end job in a convenience store just so she could watch other, better girls shine as idols.
- Two years before the events of the story, Urara had a chance to be a backup dancer for the group Kagura, but she didn't enjoy the grueling training camp and left, leaving her friend Mio (who had a major inferiority complex towards Urara) behind. However, Mio made it and Urara became saddled with failure.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Ibuki, who was inspired to become an idol by watching Mimi perform with Stella, drags Mimi out of retirement and leads to them both joining the survival audition.
- Obscure Popularity: In-Universe. Mimi's old idol group Stella never caught on with the general public and fizzled out, yet many people within the idol industry and its fandom regard them (and her in particular) fairly highly.
- Older Than They Look: Tsumugi is 14, the same age as Mei, yet she looks like she's about 10.
- Oh, Crap!: When Mimi and Ritsu get drunk in their room in chapter 28 and Kaede Kokonoe knocks on their door, they have multiple Oh, Crap! moments as they try and bluff their way through the conversation without seeming tipsy.
- Otaku: Both Mimi and Suzu are idol otaku, although Mimi is more of a general fan of idols and their music while Suzu is specifically described as an information-gathering otaku.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Mimi and Ibuki both inspired each other to become idols (or become an idol again, in Mimi's case), they fawn over and hero-worship each other while blushing, Mimi's inner narration is full of gushing over how cute Ibuki is, and she even blurted out "I love you!" during the handshake event that set the plot in motion.
- Punny Name: Aria's cruise ship-bound audition is called the Super Star Ship, often shortened to "Starship".
- Scenery Censor: In chapter 30, when Tsubasa threatens to give the reader some full frontal, his dog pops into view to hide his crotch.
- Secret Test of Character: When Mimi is tasked with ranking the sixteen candidates, it's obvious her new friend Koyuki is dead-last. But, unsure whether the last place will be eliminated, Mimi waffles on ranking her fifteenth instead, even though Suzu turned in a marginally-better performance. Aria, who is watching the deliberations via camera, decides on a whim that if Mimi does rank Koyuki fifteenth, she's going to cut Suzu. But Mimi chooses to be honest and rank Koyuki last, and so everybody passes.
- Series Continuity Error: In chapter 1, Mimi and her mom both say she's done with college. Yet in every subsequent chapter, she is referred to as a college senior.
- Smash Cut:
- In chapter 2, when Ibuki convinces Mimi to try out for Starship, Mimi triumphantly thinks that she can do anything. Smash cut to her on the verge of collapsing during a grueling jog, whining that she can't do it.
- Chapter 10 opens with Suzu's impassioned, earnest video audition on why she wants to attend the Star Ship. It then immediately cuts to her whining in the middle of a grueling training session that she wants to go home.
- Sneeze Cut: When Shuri smiles at Ibuki in chapter 10, Ibuki realizes she has a preference for girls with black hair. We then cut to Mimi sneezing her brains out.
- Stage Mom: Mei's mother dreamed of being an idol, but she had Mei before she could accomplish it, so she aggressively pushed Mei into becoming an idol instead.
- Technician Versus Performer: The manga emphasizes that being technically perfect means nothing — which is why Karin Kokonoe placed tenth. An idol must connect with the audiences' hearts, thus being a performer is everything.
- Throwing Off the Disability: Tsumugi has asthma attacks brought on by stress, which threaten to take her out of commission right before her team's first concert. But after a pep talk by the ship's doctor, she realizes everybody is afraid sometimes and that fear is only natural. Once her asthma attack dies down, she rips off her face mask and declares she will sing with Mimi and the others.
- Training Montage: At the beginning of chapter 2, Ibuki goes through her morning routine and Mimi accompanies her. While Ibuki is an active idol and is in perfect shape, Mimi ... isn't. At one point, we see Mimi jogging while her little sister rides a bicycle behind her and berates her with a megaphone.
- Unmoving Plaid: Aria's older brother, Tsubasa, wears a suit made of plaid that never changes perspective, no matter what angle he's drawn from.
- Vicariously Ambitious: Mei's mother got pregnant before she could accomplish her dream of becoming an idol, so she pushes her daughter into it despite Mei's initial apathy. Later, Mei seems to have internalized it to the point she wants to become an idol to please her mother. This is the reason she's the first to get expelled, since Aria can tell she's doing it out of obligation, rather than her own desires.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Karin Kokonoe was a promising child actress, but she envied the look her mother (an idol producer) got when she watched idols performing and decided to pursue a career as an idol despite numerous failed auditions. Now, she's joined the survival audition her mother is producing to finally make her mother look at her as an idol.
