Video Game / Idol Manager

Idol Manager is a 2021 Simulation Game in which the player takes the reins of an Idol Singer agency. In addition to the financial aspect one would expect from a business management game, the player needs to manage the group's health, skills and various surprises coming from its members' personal lives. Music plays a very minor role in the game, with music genres, lyric topics and choreography styles being little more than things to mix and match to appeal to various demographics. The same mechanics apply to any shows produced in-house, while things such as concerts are depicted via their logistics.

The game has both a "free play" mode and a story mode. The latter's plot consists of the agency getting started in a building formerly occupied by a brothel that was preventatively closed in response to a local crackdown on the industry. Its owner, Fujimoto, is now looking to invest in a more legitimate business. Other major characters include the manager of a rival idol group who is acquainted with Fujimoto and Aya Naya, a newbie journalist who keeps an eye on the player's group. The beginning of the story complements the optional tutorial in terms of easing a new player in and gives clear goals to work towards, at the price of depicting more of the harsh realities of working in the entertainment industry during the Internet era. Whether the agency will become part of those harsh realities itself or one of the better places to work in spite of them is entirely up to the player.

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The game provides examples of:

• Abuse Mistake: One possible event consists of an idol taking an Internet challenge, failing it in a way that leaves her badly bruised, not releasing the video out of embarrassment and some fans getting the idea that she's the victim of domestic abuse.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The price of sending the idols to the spa increases with the money the player has on hand, but the benefits of the spa do not.
• Awesome, but Impractical: In-house TV shows. They may bring in many fans, but remain massive money sinks in circumstances where a radio or Internet show with the same components will be breaking even. TV shows also require more physical stamina from the idol(s) running them (90 points per week, when a single completely rested idol has 100) than radio (30 points) or Internet shows (60 points). Both in terms of finances and the health of the idols, the sole TV show required by the game's objectives is best cancelled as soon as possible.
• Background Music Override: The transition from Chapter 3 to Chapter 4 is marked by the release of the first video by the Phantasm Facade group. The first scene showing the group has its own theme music that carries onto Chapter 4's title card, then the agency overview screen (which usually has its own background music) until the player has played through all of Chapter 4's main story events.
• Being Good Sucks: Doing the right thing isn't always financially sustainable, with the "right thing" sometimes being as basic as paying the idols proper salaries. During many events directly involving an idol, the option that will make everyone happy involves spending a large sum of money. The agency having reached baseline financial sustainability by the time such events happen is entirely optional.
• Blackmail: It wouldn't be a proper game about running a talent agency if the player didn't need to deal with at least one case of "pay me or I'm publishing a compromising photo of one of your idols."
• Boring, but Practical: The two drawbacks of doing a digital-only release of a single is that less money is made per sale and nobody will be buying a second copy. Its main advantage is that no money is spent on making copies to sell. All other marketing methods have a chance of making more or fewer sales than a digital-only release would, but require to produce physical CDs, which have a cost. The marketing increasing the sales is moot if not enough CDs are produced, while producing too many of them only to have them not sell can mean a net loss of a lot of money. Digital-only releases functionally have an infinite number of copies, which means that one never has to worry about having too few of them on hand. At the same time, they don't need to make the costs of producing CDs back before becoming profitable. This makes digitial-only releases extremely financially reliable compared to physical releases.
• Bullied into Depression: Getting bullied will gradually deplete an idol's mental stamina meter. The closer it gets to being empty, the more the idol risks getting too depressed to work and needing time off to recover.
• But Thou Must!: When it comes to participating in the Nation of Idols show, the player has exactly two options: accept or refuse, only to find out that an anonymous caller accepted in their name.
• Compensated Dating: Fujimoto's proposed solution to a first bankruptcy is to start sending the idols out on compensated dates.
• invokedContractual Purity:
  • The company policy options include the extent to which to enforce this trope, as the player gets to chose their agency's official stance on dating and what to actually do if an idol ever starts dating.
  • Even if the player decides to allow the idols to date at official company policy level, doesn't interfere in their love lives beyond keeping themself informed as to who, exactly, is currently in a relationship and has their use of social media pre-moderated, other users of social media can take the idols to task over the following:
    • Having photos of them drinking alcohol at a private family gathering leaked on the Internet, all while being old enough to drink.
    • Turning out to be really into a mobile Allegedly Free Game.
    • Repeating swear words from a popular foreign game's dialog while streaming it, when several solutions will reveal that other streamers did the exact same thing.
    • Getting caught fangirling a little too enthusiastically at an attractive male politician.
    • Showing signs of being a Yaoi Fangirl.
• Deliberate Under-Performance: In story mode, during a quiz show with screen time for the group on a local channel as the prize, there turns out to be an opportunity for going on a national channel that will be only available if the local gig falls through. During the quiz show finals, it becomes clear that the Player Character's rival knows of the opportunity, as well. As a result, at least one of them will be deliberately doing some combination of giving wrong answers and hoping the other answers first.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect:
  • Staffers with voice, dance or style coaching skills start out with a level beyond which they can't train an idol. That level increases as they teach idols with a level low enough to benefit from their coaching. Players who want to hire poorly skilled coaches for cheap and train them on the job will want to make sure that the idols they hire aren't too good at signing, dancing or natural looks to be trained by the poorly skilled coaches. This can also cause any business plan that involves packing the agency with the guranteed silver-tier idols from regional auditions and gold-tier idols from national auditions to backfire, as the most skilled coaches for hire only train up to level 80 out of the 100 level cap. Higher-tier idols start out with higher average skill levels, which make them much more likely to have at least one skill just under or well over the 80 mark.
  • The game expects the player to have hit 1,000,000 fans by the transition from Chapter 4 to Chapter 5, with the most obvious hint being that it's a requirement to commit to Aya Naya's route at the end of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 is centered around a two-month Timed Mission for which one of the tips is to grow the fanbase by at least 20% over that period. All reliable means of growing the fanbase grow it by a fixed number, so players who gave too much of a boost to their fanbase numbers between the beginning of Chapter 5 and getting the mission will have a harder time getting an extra 20% in two months than players who have been neglecting fandom growth during that same period.
• Embarrassing Old Photo:
  • One possible event consists of old photos of one of the idols getting posted online, revealing her to be Formerly Fat. The Internet being the Internet, this will have consequences for the idol's mental well-being.
  • Another event will have an old photo of an idol wearing a bunny outfit resurfacing, the idol's fans wanting a more recent photo of her in the same outfit, but the idol herself not being that fond of it anymore.
• An Entrepreneur Is You: One of the purposes of the game is to make to make the idol agency a financially sustainable, and eventually profitable business.
• Eyes Out of Sight: The Player Character has bangs that completely hide their eyes regardless of gender.
• invokedEnforced Method Acting: During the quiz show in story mode, both the Player Character and their rival turn out to have been tricked into trying to lose the quiz for a non-existent prize. When the Player Character and Fujimoto later discuss the fact that trick required Fujimoto to lie, Fujimoto's explanation is that he wanted a genuine reaction to the trick getting discovered.
• Firing Day: If the agency goes bankrupt, the game isn't actually over until the player has formally had the "you're fired" talk with every single member of the staff. The strict minimum required for following the tutorial and advancing in the story is three idols, a manager (the Player Character's job title is "Producer"), a choreographer/dancing coach and a sound producer/voice coach.
• Forced Level-Grinding:
  • Once in a while, the next story event will be marked as being several weeks to months away, leaving the player with nothing much to do besides routine tasks and fielding any random events in the meantime.
  • Two of the consecutive objectives from Chapter 1 of story mode are getting into the top five of the sales chart and getting to the very top of the sales chart. The Player Character's rival's group, which needs to be beaten in practice to get at the top of the charts, will consistently have sales a little south of 200,000. The sales of a single all happen upon its release and are a portion of the number of fans. Getting half-way through the promotion-related objectives will allow the player to get around 1000 new fans per day on which they choose to do a promotion drive, but, on any given day, promotion drives are mutually exclusive with both making money via performing (which nets no new fans) and taking the idols to the spa when stamina restoration via the break and medical rooms isn't enough. Side gigs for idols bring in two-to-three digit numbers of new fans, while the number of new fans generated by a new single will become a smaller proportion of the existing number over time. Hitting the top five on the sales chart has a very good chance of happening while sales are still in the four digits and unlocks a single story event. Considering all those factors, it's easy to have a long period of halted plot progress during which gameplay is entirely dedicated to looping through tasks meant to increase the number of fans all while keeping the agency sustainable.
  • One of the objectives of Aya's route is topping the charts with a single of a music genre randomly chosen by the game, which tends to pick genres that the player has yet to unlock. As the objective is given in the fourth chapter of the game, meeting it will require a few "practice" singles just for the the newly unlocked genre to not be The Millstone among the song's components.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Random events pertaining to problems with the most recent physical CD released by the agency will still appear for players who release all their singles as digital-only, the latter being the cheapest means to release a song. On the flip side of this, the requirement to have at least a CD out to be able to particpate in the quizz show, which is the player's first public event as a group manager, will accept a digital-only release.
  • If the right choices are made, it's possible to get to a point where the agency can be sustained without standard performance revenue. This doesn't prevent random events pertaining to standard performances from showing up. In addition to this, the first event that needs to be played through to unlock Aya Naya's ending involves running into her during one of the group's performances.
• Harsh Talent Show Judge: In the Nation of Idols show, the judges consist of a former idol who likes almost everything, a former music producer who's expected to give the fairest evaluation and the rival, who is the harsh one who only sees the flaws in each contestant. The music producer is expected to be the tie breaker in most cases, but the rival is rumored to give his rare thumbs up not only to the best, but also to groups he wants to see in the next round for personal reasons.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The Player Character, their group, the rival and the rival's group all have names chosen by the player. The rival's gender is also chosen by the player at the beginning of the session, as their default first name depends on it.
• Incompatible Orientation: This can turn out to be the case if the Player Character tries to flirt with idols, via the idol losing a little friendship and stating that she's not interested in people of their gender. For instance, a female Player Character will have better chances with an idol who has a history of dating fellow idols than one who consistently has off-screen boyfriends. Asexual idols will also make it clear that they aren't interested in dating if the player tries to flirt with them.
• Immoral Journalist: Aya Naya is seen walking that path during one of her events. She takes to writing a — well-researched, to her credit — story based on a conclusion she has already made before finding the facts that support it. On-screen, she admits to having started writing a story about a music genre making a comeback, but lacking any proof that it's actually happening. Guess who ends up being asked to produce a single in that music genre that sells well enough to top the charts so that Aya can use an interview of their idol group as the rationale to publish the story.
• Informed Attractiveness: All idol portraits are conventionally attractive. Good luck making any sense of their "Cute", "Sexy", "Cool" and "Pretty" stats, especially for those with low numbers in all four.
• In-Game Banking Services: Taking a loan from the bank is a possible solution to financial trouble, provided the player has a plan that will make taking the loan out worth it. Fujimoto provides zero-interest loans in story mode, but said loans have other strings attached to them.
• Interface Spoiler: The mystery behind the Phantasm Facade group is undercut by the fact that designated gallery space for the group's unlockable image is right next to an image of the player character's rival. That very same character's route also has a step that unlocks only once the player has seen all the Phantasm Facade events.
• Intrepid Reporter: One of the recurring characters in story mode is a young newbie reporter who makes a point at coming to her stories rather than the other way around. Some of the choices given to the player include what, exactly, to tell her.
• Jailbait Taboo: While it's possible to date idols, the button to flirt with them won't appear in the socialization interface before their eighteenth birthday. Note that the idols will always keep the same portrait from their audition, upon which they can be as young as twelve years old, to their graduation, which tends to be at some point in their twenties.
• The Klutz: Idols with the "Clumsy" trait get a penalty to their dancing ability and a boost to their comedy factor.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • If the Player Character takes an idol to a first date in a bookstore, some dialog choices will result in discussing the Featureless Protagonist trope in interactive fiction and Eyes Out of Sight character designs. The latter trope applies to the Player Character's own design for both sexes. It's also possible for the idol to tell the Player Character that they strike her of the type of person who plays a lot of video games.
  • Aya Naya's route includes a discussion about the balance between the group's artistic output and its finances, resulting in the player being able to address whether they would do things differently if money wasn't an issue. The game's story mode itself has a setting in which the financial aspect is removed entirely.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • The two story mode objectives that require to rank within the top five and later first place in the sales chart. While both objectives are easier to reach when more sales are made, the actual number of sales needed can have suprising variations. There are some months on which the group's latest single will rank surprisingly high despite not having hit four digits in sales just because the competition didn't do well either, while there are others where a few thousands of sales won't get the player in the top ten, let alone the top five.
  • One of the factors that can help the submission to have an idol group sing at the closing ceremony of the Summer Athletic Games is submitting a song with a combination of components (music genre, lyric topic and choreography style) that will appeal to as many jury members as possible, with the ideal being one that had good metrics upon its release. The deadline for the submission is enough to produce a new song for that sole purpose, but the jury's combination of preferences is randomly generated. The jury members may like song components that a player who has been focusing on a limited selection of them hasn't even unlocked yet. If the overlap between the player's existing output and the jury's preferences isn't a problem, there is no guarantee the best combination the player can produce will be something able to sell well; the three ways song components evolve as their quality enhances is becoming more appealing, less alienating or more alienating to various demographics. The only way to completely circumvent this is to have all possible song components maxed out before being asked to submit the application for the closing ceremony, which is a surprise Timed Mission for a player going into story mode blind.
  • If the player-character's group makes it through the application process, the next challenge will boil down to getting no new scandal points until the Summer Athletic Games start. Failure can potentially be caused by having the bad luck of getting one of the random events that are the hardest to solve without creating a scandal during that period.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: The player-character knows how to compose songs, write lyrics, invent choreography, teach it to the idols, conduct advertising campaigns and get the album to retail. And until you hire more staff, they will be doing all that.
• Miss Kitty: Fujimoto was a Gender-Inverted one back when he ran his brothel under the cover of a Hostess Club. He made sure the people selling their bodies were doing so willingly and that people who simply needed an extra revenue stream got an extra job that doesn't require to sell one's body instead.
• Modesty Shorts: A potential choice for the idols' performance outfits. The shorts are described as appealing to hardcore fans.
• Moral Guardians: Such people are possible sources of scandals. For instance, a politician might accuse one of the group's songs of causing an uptake in behavior they don't approve of among young people.
• Morton's Fork:
  • This trope is brought up by the central singer of the player's first single with lyrics about politics. The idol points out that if she's ever interviewed about the song, taking a clear position about its subject matter will risk alienating part of the fanbase, while pretending not know much about it will make her look like an idiot and be just as bad for her public image.
  • During the "Nation of Idols" boycott scandal, two idols will start an argument over whether your agency should join the boycott. Whichever option you pick will trigger the idol supporting the opposing option to resign.
• Nerves of Steel: The "Thick Skin" trait makes the idol who has it immune to bullying from other idols and online harassment. Gameplay-wise, idols who don't have the trait run the risk of being Bullied into Depression via gradual depletion of their mental stamina meter if the player doesn't deal with the situation when it arises.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: The Palette Swap system that generates the idol portraits creates variation via each possible pose having its own general outfit shape, to which different outfit designs can be applied. Any occurrence upon which two idols with different poses, but the same outfit design are visible at the same time will fall into this trope, as the constants of poses include always having a specific belt, always having a given sleeve length (if sleeves are present at all) or even always being shorts instead of a dress/skirt.
• No Stat Atrophy: Averted. Stats associated with things that are expected to deteriorate as a person ages, such as appearance and physical fitness, will take a small hit on an idol's birthday. The loss is more consequential for idols with the "Live fast" trait. The trait contrasting "Live fast", "Late bloomer" also plays with the trope as causes the stats that usually degrade on birthdays once an idol hits their twenties to get an increase, instead.
• Now, Let Me Carry You: During the earlier stages of the game, Fujimoto is able to loan the Player Character money at zero interest in exchange for favors should it ever be needed. Past a certain point of the plot, Fujimoto will have cleaned up his act enough to no longer be able to provide those loans. He will then promptly turn out to be on the market for a large infusion of cash himself and ask the Player Character if they happen to have a large quantity of money to spare in exchange of a favor from him. Giving him the money will properly start an entire subplot centered around him. The fact that he's asking for money after having been the one to provide the seed money for the agency isn't lost on him. If his route is chosen at the end of Chapter 4, he can become an employee of the agency himself.
• Office Romance: This can happen either via two of the idols dating each other or the Player Character dating an idol. If two dating idols happen to both be idle, they can sometimes be seen Holding Hands face to face in the break room.
• One-Steve Limit: This is zig-zagged in practice, as the names of all idols and female employees are randomly drawn from the same pool. As a result, it's possible to end up with personnel that shares first or last names either with each other or story mode characters with fixed names.
• Ordered Apology: A possible reaction to some events is to order the idol involved to apologize. This response is to be used carefully, as apologizing for something too minor will get the idol viewed as an Extreme Doormat, while deciding that no apology is needed for something major will get the idol perceived as The Unapologetic. With (in-game) social media being prone to Felony Misdemeanor, good luck figuring out the right response to each event.
• Palette Swap: Idol portraits are a mix and match of a large, but still limited, pool of poses, faces, hairstyles and outfit designs.
• Prisoner's Dilemma: Both sides of the thought experiment are seen depending on the choice made when it comes to answering to the rival's call to boycott the Nation of Idols show:
  • If the player chooses to participate when other contestants are boycotting it, the idol from the player's group who earlier expressed a desire to go along with the boycott will point out that such a situation applied to the player's choice: boycotting would have given the other would-be contestants more leverage against the show, but being the only one not boycotting meant getting a lot of spotlight, to the detriment of the idol groups participating in the boycott. She also points out that being the sole betrayer in a one-time event such as the thought experiment is indeed the right move, but real life consists of such dilemmas showing up repeatedly and one round's betrayer might become the next one's betrayed.
  • If the player goes along with the boycott, the rival is the one who takes advantage of the situation, resulting in the player seeing the result of cooperating while others betray. In that case, the idol who wanted to go along with the boycott brings up the thought experiment in the process of discussing her own role in the decision.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: The Player Character and their story mode rival can be made male or female, but neither choice affects gameplay.
• Relationship Values: Each idol has three bars relating to her relationship with the Player Character:
  • A friendship one that can be filled via casual conversation and choices made during random story events, which makes the idol more confortable with sharing gossip.
  • An influence one that is primarly filled by discovering what the idol would like to do during her career and making it happen. Said influence can be used to make the idol stop bullying another, force a breakup with a romantic partner or make her stay in the agency past her own preferred graduation date.
  • A third bar that exists for the purposes of an eventual Office Romance with the idol.
• Ridiculously Photogenic: Implied for idols with the "Photogenic" trait, who get double payments for photoshoots.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: One possible random event is the equipment in the sound studio malfunctioning in a way that has one of the idols persuaded that the place is haunted to the point that she refuses to work there. The two experts the player can choose to consult are an external sound expert and a spirit medium. The external sound expert will recommend dusting the room better. Calling the spirit medium also fixes the problem, once the salt they threw around the room in the process of banishing the ghost is cleaned up.
• Schrödinger's Gun: Thanks to the Take Your Time elements in gameplay, story mode has several nation-wide events that would be on their own schedule in the real world wait for the player to get to the point of the story at which they interact with them, regardless of the in-game calendar date. For instance, no matter how long it takes for the player to do so, the Nation of Idols show will be doing the final preparations for its first season right around the time the Player Character's group tops the sales chart. Even more blatantly, the Tokyo Summer Games will turn out to have been rescheduled from 2020 to the upcoming summer whenever the next objective becomes applying to have the group sing at their closing ceremony, even if doing so took several in-game years.
• Story Branching: While the plot of story mode makes use of many But Thou Must! and Morton's Fork moments to stay on track, a few decisions have a genuine impact:
  • In the story event unlocked by reaching the Top 5 in the sales chart, choosing to not help the zoo at all or having the idols go there without the Player Character in tow will result in not getting extra fans from the publicity. There is also an image that requires to go to the zoo to unlock.
  • The choice made concerning the boycott of the Nation of Idols show will have an impact on business opportunities for the rest of the game and the idol who was in favor of the choice that wasn't made will leave the group.
  • One of three ending routes must be chosen to properly end the fourth chapter of the game and move to the fifth: one tied to Aya Naya, one tied to the rival and one tied to Fujimoto.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: One possible event consists of a fan reporting getting help from one of the idols on social media, but the idol not remembering the incident, to the extent that she suspects Mistaken Identity. Two of the possible reactions are to not communicate at all or have the idol pretend that it was, indeed, her.
• Take Your Time: Overall zig-zagged in story mode:
  • All idols have a date on which they plan to graduate and leave when the in-game calendar reaches that date. A graduating idol will cause both the loss of fans who are attached to her specifically and the scandal points caused by the scandals in which she was involved.
  • The player is in no hurry to complete story mode objectives unless the objective explicitly comes with a deadline based on the in-game calendar, to the point that events that should be happening with no regard to the player's progress on prior objectives are subject to Schrödinger's Gun. Meanwhile, the Idol Awards will happen yearly regardless of story progress.
• The Team Benefactor:
  • In story mode, Fujimoto provides the initial investment and zero-interest loans. He also makes use of his connections to offer the group some opportunities and publicity once in a while.
  • One of the possible temporary solutions to running in the red in story mode is to accept a large infusion of cash from a friend of Fujimoto's whose daughter wants to be an idol. If the offer is accepted, the player will need to have the daughter be the lead singer in three singles and a concert before the year is up. On top of this, the offer is void if the daughter quits under any conditions other than her own accord. The daughter has the looks, but dismal singing and dancing talent. She also has a trait that is literally called "Spoiled" that both makes her stamina drain faster and makes her recover it more slowly, with overworking her being one of the possible means of losing her father's money.
• Terrified of Germs: Gameplay-wise, the drawback of idols with the "Hypochondriac" trait is that they lose twice the stamina during handshake events. Their introductory dialog has them looking for misplaced hand wipes.
• That Came Out Wrong: A conversation that can trigger prior to the graduation of an idol who was hired relatively young has her talk about her upcoming graduation by using "spreading her legs" as a human equivalent of "spreading one's wings". She next goes on to use the words "mature" and "adult" while talking about what she's going to do next in a very Digging Yourself Deeper way. She doesn't notice what she's doing, despite another idol's attempt to subtly tell her.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: The rival points out that all idols in a given group will eventually graduate and any of the people involved in major backstage work can potentially quit. Hence, they asks if the Player Character's group will still be that same group if all the starting idols graduate and the Player Character quits, but the group continues under that name with other people.
• Troubled Fetal Position: An idol with low physical stamina left idle may appear on the break room's couch with her knees pulled to her chest, her crossed arms resting on her knees and her face buried in her arms.
• invokedVacation, Dear Boy: One of the steps in Aya Naya's storyline is wanting to do a story about the Player Character's group going on a World Tour, but only if it "just happens" to stop at three specific locations she dreams of visiting. One of the possible responses is to have the Player Character point out that Aya sounds like she's trying to get a free vacation, which she will confirm. Actually going on a World Tour with the right route is necessary to continue that storyline.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • While it can be extremely tricky to make the agency financially sustainable without at least temporarily depriving the idols of something, it's possible for the player to still have standards as to how much they are willing to exploit the idols.
    • For instance, there are some events involving an idol that can be turned into opportunities for free publicity, but said events can be either something negative that is best forgotten from the perspective the idol involved or a genuine feel-good story that might lose that quality if the player does anything other than let it play out.
    • It can very tempting to overwork the idols in an attempt to make up for previous bad financial decisions. If the agency continues running in the red despite doing just that, the player may get a visit from Fujimoto and basically be told "Hey, if you'd be willing to have the girls sent out on Compensated Dating and get a cut of the profits, I can make arrangements". Both accepting and refusing are options.
  • The chapter of the game at the end of which a choice must be made between Aya Naya, the rival and Fujimoto allows the player to follow all three of the routes up to a certain point, but only one of them is strictly necessary to be able to move to the following chapter. However, getting to the last step before the Point of No Return of each of the routes will get Fujimoto the money he needs to sever his less savory connections earlier, while the rival and Aya Naya will have slightly shorter bucket lists. The player can hence follow the routes they don't intend to commit to just for the sake of helping the other characters.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Once the agency has a dressing room and a stylist, the outfit and hairstyle the idols got upon portrait generation can be swapped out for the other options available for their poses. This allows the player to give all their idols the same Palette Swap and sometimes create a better match between clothing and hair accessories.
• Waistcoat of Style: One of the visual reminders that Fujimoto is giving up on a quite high living standard in the process of cleaning up his act is that he's the only character wearing a waistcoat, which makes his clothing look a step up from everyone else's despite the lack of a jacket.
• Wham Line: If the Player Character joins Fujimoto for dinner after giving him money a second time, Fujimoto brings up a child that he once ended up providing for because their mother got pregnant with them in the process of stealthily selling her body to help him out of a financial crunch. Then, it turns that the incident happened quite a while ago and the child is the Player Character's rival.
• You All Look Familiar:
  • Just about any member of the staff who isn't an idol will only have one possible sprite and one possible Character Portrait that is dependent on their job. The sprites representing the idols are entirely dependent on the activity they are doing. Their portraits are more diverse, but it doesn't take many auditions to see them repeat.
  • One of the judges of the Nation of Idols show is a former music producer. He looks just like the generic music producer portrait, except that he's wearing different clothes.
• You Answered Your Own Question: One of the questions in story mode's quiz show is the location of the Tokyo Tower. The question is asked while the player has an incentive for Deliberate Under-Performance, so it's possible to answer it wrong.
• You Didn't Ask: In his ending, Fujimoto turns out to have invested in the idol group in part to be able to stay involved in the life of his Like a Son to Me, regardless of whether the latter liked it or not. After needing some amount of time to gain self-awareness of this fact, Fujimoto considers stepping away as a means to show more respect to his surrogate child's autonomy. The surrogate child points out that stepping away entirely on his own initiative is just as bad as imposing himself and that true respect of their autonomy entails asking for their input on the situation. Fujimoto gets a pleasant surprise when he goes ahead and asks his surrogate child how much they want him in their life.
• Younger Than They Look: The idol portrait generator skews towards believable post-pubescent teens and young adults. The youngest idols to show up in auditions are twelve years old and are very likely to end up with portraits that look at least a few years older.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: There are a few cases where what the player knows and what the Player Character is supposed to know differ:
  • The standard sequence of events when an idol gets bullied is the player getting alerted of the victim's ensuing loss of mental stamina by the game, finding out who is bullying her via gossiping with an idol who is neither one of the bullies nor the victim, then using the Player Character's influence over one of the bullies to get all of them to stop. As soon as the player is alerted by the game, the victim's "bonds" screen will mark her as bullied by unknown groupmates while that of the bullies will mark them as bullying an unknown victim, yet the socialization interface won't allow the player to influence the bullies into quitting their behavior. Being allowed to do that by the game requires the Player Character to gossip with non-involved idols, themselves identifiable via their lack of "bully" or "victim" status in their "bonds" screen, until the names of the ringleader of the bullies and the victim are spoken in the same breath, even if there is only one ongoing bullying situation.
  • Cases of idols from the group dating each other are much less urgent under the right policies, but are just as subject to this trope in smaller groups. Two idols are simultaneously marked as "dating an idol from your group" in their "extras" screen as soon as the game alerts the player about the situation. Yet, gossiping until the pair is outright named is still necessary for the names of their respective only possible girlfriends to appear in their "extras" screen.
  • Due to this being necessary to find out if idols with all other traits are interested in dating the Player Character, even asexual idols need to be flirted with for the part of their "extras" screen regarding relationships to spell out that they are not interested in dating. For gameplay purposes, the gimmick of asexual idols is that they don't get into romantic relationships, this much being stated in the "Asexual" trait's description from the moment the idol is unveiled in an audition.

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You are fired.