YMMV / Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!

Tropes with their own subpage:

• Awesome Music
• Broken Base
• Ensemble Dark Horse
• Fandom Specific Plot
• Homoerotic Subtext
• Ho Yay
• Memes

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Tropes A-F

• Abandon Shipping: There are some players that stopped shipping Akito/An and Toya/Kohane (or other heterosexual combinations of those pairings) due to how aggressive Colorful Palette has been about promoting the Homoerotic Subtext between An/Kohane and Akito/Toya in the game, especially when it comes to the former pairing. Buddy・Funny・Spend Time ♪ was the nail in the coffin for some shippers due to An and Kohane going on what has been officially described as a date, with Akito and Toya, as well as An's own father, being in full support of it.
• Adorkable:
  • Leo/need: Ichika, Honami, Miku, KAITO, and occasionally Shiho when her love of animals comes up.
  • MORE MORE JUMP!: Minori, Shizuku, Luka, and KAITO when he's in Fanboy mode.
  • Vivid BAD SQUAD: Kohane, Toya, KAITO, Luka, and Koutaro.
  • Wonderlands x Showtime: Emu, Miku, Luka, and Asahi.
  • Nightcord at 25:00: Kanade, Miku, and Len.
• Abridged Arena Array: When it comes to serious event tiering, there's only really two choices in terms of song selection: "Hitorinbo Envy" and "Melt". This is determined because of how event point calculation works, in which the points awarded for each song played scales to the length of the song. "Hitorinbo Envy" and "Melt" are the shortest song and longest song in the game^*"Hatsune Tenchikaibyaku Shinwa" ties with "Melt" for song length, but is almost never played for tiering purposes because it is significantly more difficult respectively; the former is played because it is best value in terms of time spent playing, while the latter is played because it is the best value per song (and thus per LP).
• Alternative Character Interpretation: This is invoked in regards to Rin and Len's relationship, reflecting the fact that Crypton's official stance on them is there is no official stance. As such, the dynamics between Rin and Len vary between the Sekai, such as School Sekai Rin/Len having some vaguely romantic undertones while Street Sekai Rin/Len operate more like a sister/brother duo. This is also discussed by the human cast, who observe that Rin and Len's relationship can vary wildly depending on the artist or viewer.
• Alternate Self Shipping:
  • While not as prominent as it was in the Project DIVA series' fanbase due to the existence of the original characters who the Virtual Singers are often shipped with (if not each other) and the lack of physical diversity between the Virtual Singers outside of Miku, especially when compared to the varying appearances of the Project DIVA modules, some selfcest shipping does exist in the fanbase, usually occurring between the Mikus and, more recently, the KAITOs.
  • The Vivid BAD SQUAD members have been shipped and cross-shipped with the "striped" versions of themselves that were shown in the full SEKAI version of Nilfruits' "Traffic Jam".
  • This has increased even further for Vivid BAD SQUAD with the release of the "Devil's Manner" 2DMV, as the monochromatic versions of themselves get shipped with both their regular and their "Traffic Jam" variants.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • Downplayed with Tsukasa, who ended up bearing the brunt of western fans' anger toward the preferential treatment Wonderlands x Showtime had received during the first half of the first year, nearly seating him Creator's Pet status. This has calmed down since Tsukasa had begun to show up less, with hate toward him being virtually non-existent by the time he got his first unit event banner "Wonder Magical Showtime".
  • Mafuyu is a very popular character in Japan, but for Global players, she tends to be more of a Base-Breaking Character since her interactions (especially in the main story) come off as insensitive, and the official translation makes her sound like more of a Jerkass, contributing to negative perceptions of her behavior. Some players view the game's depiction of her depression as too unrealistic, a stance that isn't helped by persistent Values Dissonance regarding mental health in Japan.
  • Outside of Japan (where he is extremely popular), Akito Shinonome has been met with mixed reception in the West as a singer and a character due to his Jerk with a Heart of Gold aspect (some fans have found it difficult to look past him being a Jerkass in the early Vivid BAD SQUAD story chapters) and his less stellar vocal covers such as the Vivid BAD SQUAD Archive cover of "Gimme×Gimme".
  • Similarly, Akito's sister Ena has gotten much more flak from foreign fans for her rather insensitive behavior, self-centered attiude and being a bit of an Attention Whore due to her own insecurities despite being a fan favorite in Japan and other regions. Amusingly, despite both Shinonome siblings being rather similar in terms of personal problems and personalities, Akito fans and Ena fans tend to dislike the other Shinonome sibling.
  • Initially seemed to be the case for the BAD DOGS + KAITO cover of "Ifuudoudou", as the song explicitly being about sex was met with criticisms from the western playerbase due to sexualizing underage characters. However, this criticism wasn't universal, as not only is the cover extremely popular and one of the most viewed 3DMV's on the official YouTube channel, but it's also a fan favorite in the EN server and is frequently picked during multi lives. Really, it boils down to Values Dissonance.
    • Ironically, the Vivids + Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin cover of "PaIII.Sensation", another unabashedly sexual song, was not met with the same amount of vitriol when it was announced to be added in the Colorful Stage!, nor when it was released.
• Arc Fatigue: While Word of God said that some groups will be slower to progress than others and that they have no interest in rushing things, that still hasn't stopped complaints about certain group stories from showing up.
  • 25-ji's storyline has been criticized by some for slacking behind the other units in terms of individual character development, the group failing to become more team-like over the more recent events, and repetition in their conflicts that stalls progress for group as a whole. It comes to head in What Lies Behind, What Lies Ahead where the entire event is set up as though Mizuki is finally going to confess their secret to Ena and close this chapter in their story for not only themself but also the audience, only for them to regress because Ena urges them to tell her when they're ready to. It hasn't helped matters that the event story is treated as the groups arc ender, even though no real progress was made for anyone in the group (at least in that event) to justify closing that chapter.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: The game initially had detractors complaining about the inclusion of male characters, instead preferring an all-female cast like Craft Egg's other mobile game. However, the game was a success upon release, with Wonderlands x Showtime and Vivid BAD SQUAD being among the most popular units. Len and especially KAITO have also been well-received by the players, including those who were unfamiliar with Virtual Singers before playing the game.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Ena. While a good chunk of fans like her for her relatability to the digital art community and realistic struggle with her own self-worth in regards to her art, there's also a good chunk that dislike her due to her reaction to Mafuyu's depression in the main story, viewing her as selfish and unsympathetic towards her struggles and seemingly only wanting Mafuyu around to make herself feel better through her lyrics. This gets lessened a bit after the "Unsatisfied Pale Color" event, however, where Ena gets more Character Development and has more positive interactions with her.
  • Wonderlands x Showtime as a group is starting to suffer from this. While they are generally popular, especially Tsukasa and Rui, other fans started to feel that the devs had a favoritism and bias with the group as they have much more events than everyone else (Be it as a group or individually), especially since MEIKO got a Wonderland 4* before her Vivid BAD SQUAD version even gets a 4*. There's also the fact that their character quirks are superficially similar to Hello, Happy World! from BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! and Tsukasa being involved in many events. Unit story wise, some argued that unlike Hello Happy World!, Wonderlands x Showtime's unit stories had a more realistic nuance in contrast to Hello Happy World!'s and what traits the group once had that are similar to the Hello Happy World! members soon shed off as the story continues.
  • Since the game's first anniversary event, Nene has landed herself here due to management supposedly giving her preferential treatment over the other members of her unit such as in event stories ^note  For one example, Despite Tsukasa being the event card Nene participated in Fan Festa in his place and was praised over the other the other participating characters , card rarity distribution ^note Has been a 4 star rarity card in eight out of the current ten Wonderlands x Showtime events as of November 2022. As of the game's second anniversary, she only has one 2-star rarity event card (which was released in the game's first month) and two 3-star event cards, while every other character has had at least 4 event cards., and even the Nissin Ramen collaboration where management was criticized because of her supposedly not fitting the collaborations theme. ^note Outside of Kanade, who is featured prominently in the collaboration because of her association with ramen noodles, and Miku, who is Miku, the other sets of characters featured in the collaboration are the game's sibling pairs. Nene stands out as she's featured with Nenerobo. As well, the fact that the collaboration song she sings on only has a SEKAI version and features KAITO, Kagamine Len, Nenerobo, and Mikudayo makes it look particularly bad to some fans due to the other collaboration songs having Virtual Singer and SEKAI versions, and the SEKAI versions of those songs only having Miku singing along with the original characters. Some detractors have begun to derogatorily refer to her as "Princess Nene" or "Nene-hime" due to management allegedly treating her like a princess. Unlike the examples listed under Memetic Mutation, this is regarded rather seriously by some of the fanbase.
  • As of late, non-playable characters have begun to see this treatment due to their story relevance causing some of the members of the actual units (and the Virtual Singers) to be Out of Focus in certain events. While some are okay with NPC's being given story weight because it fleshes out the world beyond just the playable characters and makes the cast as a whole feel more in-depth when they interact with others, others argue that the players aren't here to read about what the NPCs are doing and are primarily, or even solely, reading the event stories for the interactions between the characters in the main cast. Vivid BAD SQUAD is especially a victim of this due to them not only having NPCs that recur more than other units but those NPCs have also become extremely story-relevant as of THE POWER OF UNITY due to being the group of characters that will perform with them in their RAD WEEKEND surpassing event.
  • Kohane has developed into this over time and is considered the weakest "leader" character. Many fans like her cuteness, singing voice and interactions with An, but detractors criticize her character arc being relatively weak and somewhat contrived compared to the rest of Vivid BAD SQUAD and believe that An or Akito should have been given the leader position.
  • An is a divisive character in the JP fandom. She takes up much of the Vivid BAD SQUAD main story and arguably acts like more of a protagonist than Kohane sometimes. Also, many fans don’t find her to be that sympathetic. After Vivid Old Tale came out, some fans considered her a spoiled princess of Vivid Street as the event story portrayed her as well-liked on Vivid Street. Plus some consider her lucky that she has a father who was a famous singer himself who loved and supported her from the beginning. It doesn’t help that An’s experience in Vivid Street seems warmer and more supportive than Akito’s. Kick It Up a Notch also causes An to get some hate over having her issues “overshadowing” Kohane’s achievements. A suffers from being the least popular in her unit in general, and any perceived spotlight she gets over her more popular unit members is often met with criticism.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: So many fans predicted Nagi’s death to the point it would be more surprising if she were still alive.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Similarly to the Crypton Virtual Singers profiles, or MEIKO and KAITO's, therefore, lack of, the information and personalities you see for the Virtual Singers are suggestions that are not meant to be taken as "canon", despite Colorful Stage! being an official work. They are still interpretative characters, and this is just Colorful Stage!'s interpretation of them.
  • Due to their past work on Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA, Sega tends to receive the most credit for the game, with fans assuming they developed this game like they did with Project Diva. While Sega did publish it and handles much of the game's marketing, the game is actually developed by Colorful Palette, a subsidy of Craft Egg (the studio behind BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!), not by Sega.
  • As the title of the game implies ^note Project SEKAI: Colorful Stage! featuring Hatsune Miku', the Virtual Singers are featured characters that predate the game by over 10 years (as of 2022), not original characters like the main cast.
  • It's widely believed by much of the LGBT Fanbase that Mizuki is canonically either non-binary or transgender and treated as such by the others, as a result of the Global server using they/them pronouns to describe them in most instances. This is incorrect, because a major part of Mizuki's character is leaving the audience in the dark about what Mizuki's gender identity is until a big reveal that will happen sometime later, and most of their friends are even aware they're biologically male to begin with.^note It's implied that An and Rui are aware of their secret Much of the confusion is caused by the localization's attempt to work around gender-neutral writing - unlike Japanese, gendered pronouns are far harder to write around in English, requiring the use of "they" as compensation where the original script doesn't use pronouns at all save for Mizuki's first-person pronouns.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Before the first event started, Ready Steady was the most picked song in Multi-lives, due to it being the shortest song at the time^note 1 minute 32 seconds, although shorter songs have been introduced since then.
  • In the case of Gone Horribly Right, the developers tried to defy this for the first event by scaling event point gain with the song's length, to prevent players from constantly picking Ready Steady. It worked too well — players overwhelmingly picked the longest song ^note Melt, at 3 minutes 2 seconds instead, due to it earning the most points per energy consumed, and its surprisingly easy fever chance section even on Master difficulty, second only to that for Tell Your World. Naturally, quite a few memes about it have spawned.
  • Starting from the second event, with the point gain for Melt nerfed and that for shorter songs buffed, those aiming for the top ranking spots switched to Viva Happy^note 1 minute 34 seconds, due to it having more gold notes at the skill proc sections that earn more points than normal notes, making it a faster point earner than Ready Steady. Said top rankers have since switched to the even shorter Hitorinbo Envy ^note 1 minute 14 seconds once it came out, and for Expert difficulty in particular, which is the highest scoring chart for Multi-lives in the game, scoring higher than even the Master difficulty chart due to its particularly stacked fever section. It hasn't stopped anyone else from continuing to pick Melt, though.
  • By that same token, "Hitorinbo Envy" is considered the best chart to score high for Challenge Live; the vast majority of card score boosts are time-based, meaning shorter songs get more value out of them, and score per note scales inversely proportional to the length of the song, further enhancing the effectiveness of score boosting.
  • During a Cheerful Carnival event, expect players to overwhelmingly pick the left option when picking teams, regardless of what names both teams have. It got so bad during the first iteration that the game had to actively prevent players from picking Odango over Sakuramochi. And starting from the third iteration, it is because of this that top rankers end up picking the right option instead to get faster match-ups against the opposing team, resulting in the team on the right winning more points due to having stronger teams. This would later turn into an I Know You Know I Know situation where a number of people who would pick the left option would delay their choice, causing the right option to be picked more often initially and influencing at least some top rankers to pick the left option instead, before picking the left option themselves, causing the left option to start winning some events again.
  • Before the "Operation Secret Valentine" Cheerful Carnival event in February 2022, it was common knowledge that the team that was leading after the first round would hold the lead for the rest of the event. Then Giving finally managed to buck the trend, pulling the rug out from under Receiving.
  • It's fairly common for a team that won the Cheerful Carnival in the Japanese version to lose the same Cheerful Carnival in the English version. This is mostly because the English playerbase screws themselves over by flocking to the team that won on the JP version under the expectation that it will win, not realizing that you need people to actually compete with in the other team to score points and thus forcing a lot of mirror matches while the team with less players gets actual fights more frequently.
  • As mentioned under Game-Breaker, you can expect the SEKAI limited Virtual Singer cards to be in nearly every top tierers team because of the score boost they give depending on how many members of a unit they have in their team (ex. using Wonderland KAITO's limited card in a team with Tsukasa, Emu, Nene, and Rui will give the players a 10% boost for each character except KAITO, and an additional 10% because it's every member of Wonderlands x Showtime. At skill level four the total boost is 150%). These cards were clearly made with tierers in mind, and they also address the criticism of the uselessness of the previous limited Virtual Singer cards due to there being no Virtual Singer-focused unit events they can be used for.
• Continuity Lockout: The Evilious collaboration. Beyond just the songs, the story of each character featured in the collaboration is fairly expansive and interconnected in various ways. However, due to the collaboration lacking an event and condensing the characters' stories into brief side stories and area conversations, it leaves most players who aren't familiar with the series in the dark on who they are, their connection to the Virtual Singers, their overall motives, among other things.
• Covered Up:
  • Searching for "PaIII.SENSATION" results in the SEKAI cover having more relevance than the original, to the point fans forget that it was originally a Vocaloid/Virtual Singer song published in September 2016, while the SEKAI cover was added in April 2022, despite the original having more views.
  • The same thing happens with "Doctor=Funk Beat", with the SEKAI cover also getting more relevance than the original despite the view count, to the point fans forget that this, too, was a cover of a Vocaloid/Virtual Singer song. The original song was published in June 2015, while the SEKAI cover was added in September 2020.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Several of the characters have had their behaviors interpreted as different disorders.
  • It is not outright said, but many have interpreted the various hints through the story as Rui having autistic spectrum disorder. Some common traits associated with ASD/neurodivergence such as deep, spontaneous interest in certain subjects, social awkwardness(notably an unawareness about how other people may not be passionate about his interests just as he is), and eccentric behaviors which come off as off-putting to other people, and his inability to properly organize his surroundings, are shown. Also, in Revival my Dream, his mother says he is "different" from other kids without specifically using the word "smarter", which may suggest that his uniqueness and isolation did not come from intelligence alone. Her advice about his insecurity was also about meeting someone to understand and accept him for who he is, rather than about his intellectual prowess being in use. The interview article, which had a significant impact on Rui's mindset concerning shows, used the term "minorities" among other examples of audiences to express that people can share the feelings the shows invoke no matter how different they are. This can imply that he is also a sort of minority, too.
  • Many fans also see Touya as autistic coded, as he has quite a few traits commonly associated with autism/neurodivergence. This includes his struggles to make different facial expressions and decipher others’, lack of understanding of social cues, his tendency to take everything people tell him at face value (and being quite gullible as a result), sensory issues (aversions to certain textures and smells, and Akito once mentioned in an interview that he avoids wearing jewelry that could make unnecessary noise onstage since someone in Vivid BAD SQUAD is sensitive to sound— most likely referring to Touya), his very blunt and honest nature, and intense interests in certain topics, like mystery novels and arcade games.
  • Akito is commonly interpreted as having ADHD due to quite a few traits of his, such as his intense and all-consuming fixations on his interests (primarily music) and difficulty with focusing on anything else, poor academic performance, and, most significantly, his intense rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is commonly experienced alongside ADHD. Symptoms of RSD include being easily embarrassed or self-conscious, having low self-esteem and trouble believing in oneself, trouble containing one's emotions when they feel rejected, and overworking and striving for perfection to avoid failure or rejection, all of which Akito clearly displays.
  • Between her difficulty speaking to people she doesn't know and discomfort around making eye contact, people interpret Nene as suffering from social anxiety. She gradually improves over time, though she retains a level of shyness around strangers.
  • Fans speculate that Kanade suffers from PTSD, depression, or both based on her behavior throughout the story.
  • Throughout N25's story, it becomes clear that Mafuyu is likely dealing with severe depression. Mafuyu is kind and open at school, but when she's alone, her demeanor is hollow and lifeless, and she at one point decides to remain inside her SEKAI forever.
  • For Virtual Singers, Leo/need KAITO seems to suffer from social anxiety, trying to outright avoid most social situations, especially ones that would put him at the center of attention. He also appears to have trouble reading more passionate emotions, often misinterpreting Rin and Len's playful banter and competitions as full-blown arguments, leading him to see their Friendly Rivalry as far more vitriolic than it is. MEIKO often has to remind him that they're enjoying themselves and don't need an intervention. This, combined with his social avoidance, leads some fans to speculate that he may be autistic.
  • Many fans interpret Vivid BAD SQUAD's KAITO as having ADHD due to him getting hyperfixated on whatever interests him in the moment, while struggling to focus on or outright forgetting about obligations that don't stimulate him.
  • Oddly enough, some fans have theorized that Akito and Ena's father is autistic due to his issues with communication and expressing his feelings.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • The first two-thirds of the Master chart for Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu is closer to a level 32 or even 31, rather than the 35 the chart is rated as. The difficulty mainly comes from the final third of the chart, specifically the infamous Motor Mouth vocal spam part which increases in difficulty as it progresses, culminating in what is probably the hardest section in the entire game, and causing most players to rate it as one of the hardest Master charts in the game.
  • Generally speaking, there is an almost-unreasonable jump in chart difficulty from Level 31 to Level 32. Even worse with Level 33, which is explicitly designed to be Nintendo Hard up to eleven. This spike was addressed with the upper ceiling being bumped up to 36 and some charts getting their ratings bumped up to be more indicative of their actual difficulty in the March 2022 update, such as "The END of HATSUNE MIKU" getting re-rated to a 35 after previously being a 33.
  • The 'What Lies Behind, What Lies Ahead' event turned out to be the most disgustingly cutthroat event in the history of the English server, several times more difficult to tier in compared to virtually every other prior event. Due to a combination of factors, mainly being a hotly anticipated event for arguably the most popular character in the EN version of the game and a highly-prized card pool, event tiering massively inflated to the point that it'd give the Japanese server a run for its money with how many points were needed to get a good rank.
• Discredited Meme: In the western community, "Sadkasa". Originally a somewhat commonly accepted fan theory that Tsukasa has some hidden darkness that would eventually be revealed, fans grew sick of the headcanon and the fans who pushed it after said fans began to use Tsukasa's younger sister Saki as a plot device to spur Tsukasa into becoming a more tragic character in fan works, such as by having her die from her illness.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: How popular is the Sekai, see here!
• Epileptic Trees:
  • While "Jackpot Sad Girl" is a Mafuyu Image Song, it's commonly theorized by fans that the song also doubles as a Take That! to former Vocaloid producer Hachi ^note it should be noted, however, that he is a superfan of Kenshi Yonezu, came to interview commemorating latter's debut milestone and admitted the writing of Jackpot Sad Girl itself doesn't have any bad intent, such as dissing him, in the first place. This is not the first time either, as his single, Gambling, were also a Take That! to YOASOBI's Yoru ni Kakeru but he befriends Ayase in real life along with other composers. , specifically his song "Suna no Wakusei" which was negatively received by other producers for being a thinly-veiled critique of the "death" of the Vocaloid community. The part of the song in question is the bridge, which starts off counting to 8 in Japanese^note "hachi" is Japanese for 8, references and disparages a "teach" that has no contextual connection to the rest of the song, and in syudou's music video the word "shouwakusei" is written in the same font as the "Suna no Wakusei" music video. Furthering the theory is a tweet by syudou posted at the same time as "Jackpot Sad Girl", in which he remarks about "finally responding after three years", the same time gap between "Suna no Wakusei"'s original release and the release of "Jackpot Sad Girl".
  • The side story for Luka's 2nd Anniversary ColorFes card focuses on her exploring an "abandoned" SEKAI, which takes the form of a graveyard-esque forest littered with the unrealized dreams of an unknown person. The story ends on Luka discovering the last glimmer of hope from its owner, followed by a cut to a scene in the Scramble Crossing of an unseen person, who is presumably the owner of the SEKAI, singing. Fans have taken this as potential Foreshadowing for a 6th unit, possibly to debut on the game's 3rd anniversary. It was later confirmed that no new units would be added for the 3rd Anniversary, although it is something developers are considering doing eventually.
  • Within the Shinonome household, some fans have theorized that Akito is adopted due to him looking nothing like his sister, Ena, or their father, despite this never being implied to be the case in the story.
    • Even wilder, some have theorized that Arata Tono is Akito's real father due to him also having olive-green eyes and orange hair, at least in certain parts. This is also used to explain Arata's interest in Akito.
    • There's also been theories that Akito's orange hair is dyed, with his real hair color being brown. However, Akito's younger appearances also having orange hair have Jossed this theory. That said, the blonde parts of his hair are dyed.
  • One of the most "out there" theories is Mizuki’s true identity being a robot built by Rui.
  • While it's likely just one-off collaboration art, some fans have interpreted the Zozotown collaboration illustrations as older designs for the Colorful Stage! cast due to some of the characters looking older than they do in the game, especially Vivid BAD SQUAD, Nightcord at 25:00, and Wonderlands x Showtime. The latter distinctly looks as though they're in the college setting, while Vivid BAD SQUAD and Nightcord at 25:00 could easily pass for 20-somethings more than they could high schoolers.
• Fan Discontinuity: English fans have largely avoided using the official English name for the game, Hatsune Miku: COLORFUL STAGE!, as it strips out the entire original title used in every other regional version of the game, and continue to refer to it as Project Sekai.
  • Wandahoi/Wonderhoi being officially translated as "Wonderhoy"^note a portmanteau of Wonder + Ahoy was received negatively by long-time players of the Japanese version of the game, to the point where some fans refuse to acknowledge that the translation exists. Interestingly enough, the Taiwan server translates it to Wonderhoi instead.
  • Some Vocaloid fans prefer to pretend this game doesn't exist as a Creator-Driven Successor to the Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Go ahead and say that any of the VIRTUAL SINGERS featured in the game are "from" Colorful Stage!. See how well that goes for you... Even other Colorful Stage! players will rush you over it.
  • This also extends to equating VOCALOID/Piapro character media in general with Colorful Stage!. For example, commenting on "Hatsune Miku x [X] franchise" collaborations and saying something along the lines of "They're collaborating with Colorful Stage!" will seat you in hot water 97% of the time. 100% of the time if commented where others can see.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Ironically, there is a bit of heat between some Vocaloid fans and Colorful Stage! players due to the treatment of the Virtual Singers compared to the Original Generation, leading to accusations that it's not a real Vocaloid game and that the Crypton Vocaloids and Vocaloid songs are simply there for the sake of marketability (it doesn't help that the series has replaced the more Vocaloid-centric Project Diva as Sega's primary Miku game). Meanwhile, some Colorful Stage! fans tend to ignore the Virtual Singers in favor of the original characters, all while fighting against the well-established Vocaloid fanon, something Vocaloid fans have not taken well. Because of this, Vocaloid fans have opted to keep Colorful Stage! related things separate from Vocaloid projects^note Such as not wanting Colorful Stage! associated with Magical Mirai or Miku Symphony due to viewing them as entirely different things.
  • In the western side of the fandom, there's a bit of infighting for Vivid BAD SQUAD fans due to the existence of the subunits Vivids and BAD DOGS fans. Despite both groups being subunits of the Vivid BAD SQUAD, fans of each subunit get upset if they perceive the other as getting preferential treatment over the other.
  • With World Dai Star Yume No Stellarium, which gets a lot of accusations from Colorful Stage! players of ripping off the latter game with the use of a similar gameplay UI. YumeSute players are fully aware of the complaints and counter that Colorful Stage! players are too defensive of their game, and argue that YumeSute has enough of its own merits (such as accuracy-based scoring, non-need to release hold notes with perfect timing, and multi-finger charts as a regular feature) to stand on its own and does not warrant the unfavorable comparisons.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Overseas fans tend to refer to Luka, MEIKO, and KAITO as the "senior group" or the "adult group" due to all three characters having slightly older appearances than Miku, Rin, and Len.
  • Fans of Project DIVA also refer to the SEKAI versions of the Virtual Singers and the costumes they obtain during events as "Modules", as a reference to the game.
  • "Treekasa" for Tsukasa Playing a Tree in the On This Holy Night, I Sing trained illustrations.
  • "Sadkasa", for Tsukasa angst headcanons in the western community.
  • "Kohammy" for Kohane, based on her frequently being compared to a hamster in supplementary material.
  • Mafuyu has the cutesy nickname "Mafufu" from the English community.
  • Due to lacking known names, Mafuyu's parents are referred to as "Mafumom" and "Mafudad" respectively.
• Fanon:
  • Fan art of characters as they would appear if they switched units was pretty popular before the April Fools' Day 2022 event "canonized" it for some characters.
  • When fan art depicts non-Crypton Virtual Singers with the Original Generation, flower is usually assigned to being a mentor to Nightcord at 25:00 because of her dark design and a number of her songs being covered by the group. On the other hand, Gumi is usually drawn with Wonderlands x Showtime, occasionally bringing Gakupo along with her.
  • While officially vaguely associated with wolves and cats, fans tend to associate Akito with foxes due to their sly cunning and his bright orange hair.
    • People tend to associate his partner Toya with rabbits due to the Moe factor of his character and to highlight their differences.
  • Toya is generally considered to be the third Tenma sibling on an honorary basis, which is fairly supported by canon due to Tsukasa openly saying he considers Toya to be his younger brother. He was also born in the same month as the Tenma siblings, with each "sibling" being born 8 days apart. Fans sometimes take it further and have him actually be adopted into the family.
  • According to most of the fanbase, An is a lesbian, no ifs, and's, or buts. While the game's story and interactions don't exactly contest this interpretation, it has never been officially stated.
• Fans Prefer the New Her:
  • While it was only temporary, some fans ended up really liking Haruka's Street Style makeover◊ from the event story Buddy・Funny・Spend Time ♪ over her default style.
  • The ZOZOTOWN collaboration illustrations gave every character in the cast a new, slightly (or significantly) older-looking design, which ended up being extremely well-received by fans, to the point where some fans wished they would become official older designs for the characters in the game. Tsukasa with glasses ended up being the most popular of these new designs.
• Foe Yay Shipping: There is a small but dedicated subset of fans that ships Akito with his rival Arata Tono.
• Fountain of Memes: Emu, thanks to her comically endearing mannerisms and wildly outgoing personality. It's not hard to find a bunch of memes or voice clips of her on social media.
• Franchise Original Sin: In the game's second year, there have widely been complaints about songs going to the "wrong units", especially in regards to MORE MORE JUMP!, as they've gotten songs that fans of Nightcord at 25:00 have said would fit their favorite unit better (such as "Darling Dance", "Karakuri Pierrot" and "Shoujo Rei"). However, this "issue" has been present since the game's first year because of the Genre Roulette nature of the game, with a notable example being Vivid BAD SQUAD covering "Doctor = Funkbeat", a song that was thought to fit Wonderlands x Showtime's Rui and Tsukasa better subject wise.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • At least in the pockets of the fandom that don't hate the existence of Colorful Stage!, there is a bit of cross over between fans of Vocaloid and SEKAI players.
  • There has been a bit of cross-over between players of BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! and Colorful Stage!, especially after complaints of the superficial similarities between the units began to die down.
  • Also with Tokyo 7th Sisters, due to both games being very similar to CHUNITHM (after the November 2017 renewal for Nanasis, at least).
  • With Genshin Impact of all games, thanks to a very popular MMD video of "Ifuudoudou" starring Xiao, Albedo, and Scaramouche that uses the choreography featured in Vivid BAD SQUAD's 3DMV cover of the song.
  • Covering the game's original discography is fairly popular with various hololive^note  Suisei Hoshimachi in particular, who is a massive VOCALOID and Colorful Stage! fangirl and Nijisanji talent, leading to some overlap with the Vtuber community as well. The game has even brought on a variety of Nijisanji members to collaborate, with Kizuku Yashiro being a recurring guest and Colorful Stage! competitor.
  • In the fandom, fans of Wonderlands x Showtime, Vivid BAD SQUAD, and Nightcord at 25:00 all tend to get along quite well due to the groups having a lot of shared bonds and background between the characters. Similarly, Leo/Need fans and More More JUMP! fans get along well due to both groups all going to the same high school.

Tropes G-R

• Game-Breaker: The SEKAI limited Virtual Singer cards due to the special 10% score boost they grant for every member of a unit the players have in their team (except for themselves). If the player has every member of a unit in one team (ex. using Wonderland KAITO's limited card in a team with Tsukasa, Emu, Nene, and Rui), an additional 10% score boost is granted on top of the boost it was already giving. This can be up to 150% at skill level four, making these cards required for tiering high in events. Needless to say, Complacent Gaming Syndrome kicked in almost immediately after these cards were released, and you can expect nearly every whale in the top 100 to have at least one of these cards in their teams.
• Gateway Series: The game was created with the purpose of introducing a new generation to VOCALOID, and has succeeded in doing so.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Likely due to the game's association with both the BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! and Vocaloid franchises, it amassed quite a big following outside of Japan long before the game got an English release.
  • While not as popular as in the game's home country, the groups Leo/need and MORE MORE JUMP! as well as their members^note  Except Saki who was already fairly popular are more warmly received by overseas fans.
  • The game has a surprisingly prominent fanbase in Korea that contributes a good amount of fan content to the game. This fanbase existed even before the official Korean server went live.
  • Among the VIRTUAL SINGER unit, MEIKO is the least popular with players in Japan. However, western players have taken a shine to her, especially those who liked MEIKO as a VOCALOID voice bank in the first place.
  • An Shiraishi stands out as a character that has a rather large western fanbase, especially among the LGBT community due to it being accepted that she's a lesbian. While by no means unpopular in her home country, or really, any other overseas fanbase, she's by far the least popular member of her unit, with this being supported by banner earnings and borders for her event focuses, showing a notable contrast in reception.
  • While already extremely popular in their home country and other regions, Mizuki tends to slack behind other popular characters like Tsukasa and Kanade. However, overseas, they're perhaps the most popular character in the game, with this being further proven by how cutthroat their What Lies beyond, What Lies Ahead event was while it was running.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Vocaloid tuning isn't easy, especially when working with software that technically isn't final. This is especially evident with some of the game's early songs, where the tuning has a tendency to sound "off" or "plain" all things depending, but later release songs do a somewhat better job of making the vocals sound clear and resemble human vocal patterns while maintaining its distinctly machine-like qualities.
  • For some players, several aspects of the Vivid BAD SQUAD storyline are considered to be some of the weaker parts of the game's storytelling such as its overreliance on a shonen narrative, which translates poorly into the game's visual novel format, as well as some players finding it difficult to sympathize with the group's end goal of surpassing RAD WEEKEND, a legendary event the readers were left largely in the dark about until Legend Still Vivid. While some early event stories like Nocturne Interlude and STRAY BAD DOG were received warmly, there wasn't a near-complete turnaround in interest in the story until Same Dream, Same Colors, where the group puts aside their goal of wanting to surpass RAD WEEKEND temporarily to bond together as a group on a camping trip and gain more experience needed to get closer to their end goal in the process.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the April Fools Day 2022 event, Kanade joins the idol unit YUME YUME JUMP! as a composer and has a hard time practicing because of her poor physical condition. In November 2022, Kusunoki Tomori announced that she had been officially diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects muscle function and connective tissue in the body, causing her physical pain when performing. It was because of this diagnosis that she announced her retirement from her roles as the idols Setsuna Yūki and Nana Nakagawa from Love Live!.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Both Akina and Tomomi-Jiena Sumi uploaded self-covers of Ado's "Odo", leading to fans making fan mixes of the two covers and passing it off as an An/Kohane duet. Come February 2022, a campaign featuring Ado songs added "Odo" to the game, with none other than An and Kohane doing the SEKAI Version.
• I Knew It!:
  • Fans had speculated for months prior to close game/OFFLINE release that Toya and Nene would have an arcade-centric mixed event. Even better, some predicted that both Akito and Emu would be involved in some way, which turned out to also be true.
  • In regards to Vivid Bad Squad's story development, a lot of fans speculated that Nagi, Taiga's sister, is possibly deceased from the way Taiga and Ken both skirt around the subject regarding Nagi's whereabouts and well-being. In "Light Up My Fire", this was confirmed as Nagi is revealed to have died from pancreatic cancer.
• Incest Yay Shipping:
  • In the Japanese and Korean side of the fandom, Akito/Ena is a fairly popular cross-unit ship despite the two being brother and sister, even overshadowing some of Akito's heterosexual pairings such as with Kohane or An in some circles. There are various reasons for the ship's popularity, such as the two looking nothing alike but having similar personalities, their dynamic coming off as Belligerent Sexual Tension. In the West, however, this ship is firmly treated as Squick and No Yay.
  • While comparatively less popular, Tsukasa will at times be shipped with his younger sister Saki, with this fanart often depicting him as a sort of brocon or interpreting Saki's Big Brother Worship as Big Brother Attraction instead.
  • There are also a few people who have taken to shipping the Hinomori siblings Shizuku and Shiho due to Shizuku's attachment to Shiho being interpreted as her being a siscon.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: This is a common complaint levied at the COLORFUL STAGE! exclusive songs, which tend to have relatively bland and easy charts compared to the rest of the songs in the game.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: There are a handful of players who dislike "What's Up? Pop!" MASTER for not being beatable for thumb players (which makes up a large portion of the game's casual playerbase), generally being too hard just for the sake of it, and relying mostly on CHUNITHM levels of spam rather than creative level design.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Some people have been turned off by some of the striking similarities to BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! in terms of characters, with Leo/need and Wonderlands x Showtime being the worst offenders (being compared to Afterglow and Hello, Happy World! respectively).
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some of the more vocal Global version fans have come to resent "Ifuudoudou" and "KING" due to how popular they are, leading to either song showing up in Co-Op much more frequently than other picks.
  • This sentiment is more prevalent in Western VOCALOID circles that resent the game for being the most popular form of global exposure for VOCALOID as a whole, partly because of its effects on the less popular but more universally liked Project DIVA series but also because the game is especially popular among a much younger age demographic than the average VOCALOID fan.
• Jerkass Woobie: Akito Shinonome. He's a big jerk in the Vivid BAD SQUAD unit story despite his Hidden Heart of Gold being present even early on, however, the players are given glimpses into his past, where we see him being constantly humiliated and looked down upon despite just being a kid chasing his dream and trying to grow past his inherent lack of talent. Add on how horrible the Vivid BAD SQUAD background characters are compared to other background characters in the story and it's no wonder he acts this way in the present.
• Junk Rare: Starting from Haruka's 2021 Birthday Gacha, birthday cards have been introduced and will only be available to roll for at the time of the celebrated characters' birthday, making them one of the rarest kinds of cards. Despite this, there isn't much to gain out of rolling for them. Even though they're valued above 3★, they are still far worse than most 4★ and have a debatably useless healing + perfect scorer skill that can easily be swapped out for more powerful 4★ Gacha cards. Despite this, they are present in their Gacha at the same rate as 4★ cards. Master Ranking birthday cards can be expensive, too, as they require 1000 emotion fragments to Master Rank, being higher than 3★ at 50 and lower than 4★ at 2000. You also cannot use chords to Master Rank them, since they are not 4★ cards. Also, while the characters are depicted wearing new outfits with their cards, the cards themselves do not come with new outfits. Even unlocking the card stories have debatable usefulness, as the second card story gives emotion fragments rather than crystals like every other type of card. The cards seem to exist solely as a new way to enhance revenue and don't serve any other purpose to the average player unless they're short on 4★ cards, are collecting cards or like the character or their art.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many people only play the game because it's the first, and currently only, proper mobile Vocaloid Rhythm Game with a discography that isn't limited to just the Crypton Virtual Singers. The fact that it features the Virtual Singers as actual characters also helped to draw in people.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: 25-ji Nightcord de.'s story tries to play up the mystery of the identity of "that girl" that Miku wants Kanade to help save, although a good chunk of the fandom and promo material makes it well-known that said girl is Mafuyu. The official fanbook, which was released around of the game's first anniversary, similarly makes no effort to hide the fact that the SEKAI belongs to her.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Tsukasa seems to be shipped with just about everyone he's ever met once, and even some characters he has yet to meet, such as Mafuyu and Ena.
  • Despite his attitude in-game, or possibly because of it, Akito gets shipped around with other characters in the cast fairly often, even if he's only interacted with them once. Though his most prominent ship is with Toya, he's also gotten fan art shipping him with Ena, her childhood friend Airi, Tsukasa, Rui, his rival Arata Tono, Minori, Mizuki and of course his fellow teammates An and Kohane.
  • Kanade, despite being the most reclusive character in the game, has been paired with everyone within her unit, Miku, the other unit leaders, and Akito, just to name a few.
• LGBT Fanbase: The game built up one pretty quickly due to it being a game that features Hatsune Miku, who has been an LGBT icon for some time, and because of its characters:
  • Mizuki is particularly popular with the LGBT community due to fans interpreting their story arc as them being transgender or nonbinary.
  • Vivid BAD SQUAD has a notable LGBT fanbase due to the Ho Yay-laden relationships between An and Kohane and Akito and Toya. The group has been dubbed "Vivid GAY SQUAD" by its LGBT fans. Vivid Bad Squad being gay has been largely embraced by both the Eastern and Western sides of the fandom.
• Memetic Loser: Minori. Aside from her very low popularity (she's consistently in the bottom two in polls alongside Honami, and her merchandise was the last to sell out during the Lawson collaboration), much of the fanbase have also noticed how often she gets put down in-game (most notably her March 2021 event and her April Fool's lines), and to that end, some of them have even followed the game in "bullying" her.
  • Toya's father, Harumichi, who is often portrayed as helpless to do anything but stare in shock or disapproval as Toya rebels against him to be with Akito in the fanbase. It doesn't help that this is pretty much canon, though not to the exaggerated degree that it is played up in fan art.
  • Though usually executed in jest (though sometimes not), Akito is at times portrayed as a pathetic loser that gets picked on by An and Kohane in the western fanbase. If the ship with Toya remains, he'll be a hopeless loser in love that can't properly convey his feelings, forcing Toya to have to make the extra effort on his behalf.
  • Vivid BAD SQUAD's KAITO, due to him already being a Manchild and Butt-Monkey in canon. The fact that his characterization is very reminiscent of old popular fan portrayals of KAITO, himself a Memetic Loser, doesn't help.
• Memetic Mutation: Sekai is born from memes.
• Misblamed:
  • The localization team often takes the brunt of the heat whenever a song title gets changed in the Global version, even though the devs maintain that the original producers get the final say on the localized names even if they don't match the original Japanese version.
  • Some Vocaloid producer interviews have implied that they're at least partially to blame for the strange line distribution in early songs because of their preferences. For example, Giga-P said in an interview for his commissioned song "Ready Steady" that he wanted the girls to do the melodies while the boys rap, which is likely the reason why Akito and Toya received so few solo lines compared to An and Kohane (and Miku). It also aligns with how the lines were distributed in the VIRTUAL SINGER version of the song.
• Misaimed Fandom: Quite a lot of western fans interpreted Airi Momoi as being Transgender, or more specifically Transfeminine, due to her fes story having her meet her past self who wanted to grow out of the tomboy image and become more feminine to better fit the image of an idol who spreads cheer and hope to everyone. Airi initially resenting her younger self's tomboyish behavior certainly hasn't helped that idea, though the story makes it clear that her issue is with being a tomboy as well as the fact that she continued to struggle as an idol despite fitting the image rather than anything concerning gender identity.
• Moe:
  • Kohane is a fairly popular character by sheer virtue of how ridiculously adorable she is for being associated with street music. Her singing style, while higher-pitched in contrast to the other Vivid BAD SQUAD members, manages to balance her sound with how smooth and balanced she sings, also making her very popular in songs.
  • Leo/need’s version of KAITO, which ended up partially being the reason he was so well-received by the fanbase. In the Classroom Sekai, he’s portrayed as a Shrinking Violet who speaks little and prefers to express himself through the music he plays. The other Leo/need Virtual Singers don’t hold back on bullying him over his shyness, with Luka pointing it out during his intro event causing him to blush visibly. This 4koma perfectly highlights his adorableness.
  • A big part of why N25 Miku is so beloved is because of how utterly adorable she is despite her looks, being the most innocent and childlike among the many Mikus in the game: She Still Believes in Santa, gets easily amazed by things like aquariums and mirrors, and is pampered by everyone in N25 like she is their little sister. Fittingly, whenever she appears outside the game like in the official 4-koma or the last Petit Sekai episode, wholesomeness usually follows.
  • Empty SEKAI Len has been compared by many fans to an innocent, lost child and quickly earned the love of the fanbase for his adorable appearance.
  • Aoyagi Toya, who is introduced as The Stoic but gradually becomes more emotive as he receives Character Development. He goes from a quiet, stoned-faced boy who only really smiles when interacting with Akito and Tsukasa to someone who beams regularly and gets excited over small things such as festival games, cutting vegetables, and Puyo Puyo.
• Moment of Awesome: The Second Anniversary Animated PV for both Gunjo Sanka and Journey, which features many moments in the game's story gorgeously animated. The Third Anniversary Animated PV for NEO also continues to provide gorgeously animated scenes from many of the game's event stories.
• More Popular Spin Off: Not that Project DIVA wasn't extremely popular for its time, but this game's existence effectively dethroned DIVA as the de facto VOCALOID video game.
• Narm Charm: Some of the 3DMV choreography can come off as a little goofy, with some examples being the Vivid BAD SQUAD members' (+ Virtual Singers') attempts at being "sexy" in "Ifuudoudou" and "PAIII.Sensation", which looks more like kids messing around, or the lack of energy in most Mafuyu or Kanade-centric 3DMV's. There is a bit of charm to these, however, as they fit the personalities of the characters and are still fun to watch.
• Never Live It Down: A few examples have sprung up.
  • Hatsune Miku being spammed across the game, both song and card-wise, has led to some fans complaining whenever she gets content of any form, even when she needs it. For instance, MORE MORE JUMP!'s Hatsune Miku went over a year with only her launch 2☆ and 4☆ cards. In order to make her more useful to the unit, she needed more cards with varying attributes so that she could be used on more teams. However, when she finally received a 3☆ in the event Beyond Prayers, the Tomorrow We Wish for Is... fans complained about how often Miku was getting cards, even though that specific SEKAI variant of Miku hadn't received any content for some time.
  • In the western fanbase, some players haven't been able to move past Akito and Ena's actions in their respective unit stories, whether it be perceived actions or things they actually did.
  • The Vivid BAD SQUAD Archives cover of "Gimme×Gimme" is particularly infamous among fans for being unusually bad for both the characters and compared to the other Archive songs released (both before and after), with both Akito and An sounding consistently off-key and/or awkward and their duet parts being poorly mixed. The unusually poor quality of the song led to some fans joking that a supposed lack of chemistry between the characters was the cause.
  • Fans of the Vivid BAD SQUAD have yet to move on from the poor line distribution in the group's early unit songs "Ready Steady" and "Forward", both songs in which Akito and Toya got shafted hard compared to An, Kohane and Miku, who received more solo lines than both despite essentially being a guest singer. "Forward" tends to bear the brunt of the hate due to Akito and Toya essentially being the chorus for most of the song, and even outside of the unit, the song is used as a baseline example when criticizing songs for poor line distribution.
  • The initial version of An and Akito’s Egoist alt vocal caused a lot of lasting backlash from different directions of the fandom. The alt itself had poor line distribution with Akito not singing until nearly a third into the song, getting no solo lines, and being designated background vocals for An. To make matters worse, Akito had the fewest alt vocals before this alt came out, the preview of the alt hid the uneven line distribution, and precious Akito alt vocal cards were spent on an alt where Akito is the background singer. Fortunately, management apologized and eventually released a newer version that had more even line distribution. However, there were lasting consequences brought about by the initial version:
    • For starters, the alt made it apparent that Egoist was centered around An’s issues. If that’s the case, Akito’s alt seemed about him being background support for An rather than about his own character. Many fans were not happy with the idea of Akito being used mainly as a support character for An.
    • Akito and An is generally not seen as a very popular pairing, with some fans claiming that the butchered alt made them wish that Akito and An would sing together as little as possible because management seemingly wants to use Akito as support for An’s character.
    • An’s character gained hate since Egoist being about her seemed to be management trying to make her more pitiable.
    • Akito’s character initially got some backlash due to management quickly correcting the alt, with some fans saying management should let An take the spotlight since Egoist is about her and not cave to fan pressure. However, ultimately this backlash against Akito gets overshadowed by Akito’s large popularity and due to him being seemingly the victim of the butchered Egoist alt.
    • An’s character ultimately takes a lot of the backlash due to the Egoist alt, with some viewing it as a sign management favors An and will dump other characters, like Akito, as support roles to further the spotlight on her issues. To this day, the Egoist alt is brought up as management favoring An and her story.
    • The poor release of the Egoist alt negatively colored some fans’ views of the Egoist full group cover, causing them to not enjoy the cover like before.
  • For Wonderlands x Showtime, "Nijiro Stories" due to it being the only commissioned song in the game to kick two members of a group (Tsukasa and Emu) out of the song to replace them with Virtual Singers (KAITO and MEIKO), making it even worse than "Forward" when it comes to original song line distribution. It is by far their least popular Wonderlands x Showtime original song and the subject of fan dunking when they discuss bad original Colorful Stage! songs.
• Old Guard Versus New Blood: The mere existence of Colorful Stage! has created an increasingly apparent split within the VOCALOID fandom. While all (or most) sides love VOCALOID and its music, the presence of the game's original characters taking the center focus and the game's heavy reliance on human covers has skewed the perception somewhat, with older VOCALOID fans showing a degree of resentment towards the game for not focusing on the actual Crypton characters like in the older media and functionally replacing the beloved Project DIVA series (which unfortunately has gone through its Franchise Killer phase due to its own issues).
• Older Than They Think: While for the most part, Colorful Stage! is a spiritual successor to the Project Diva series with its own story, certain concepts in the game such as the different styles and aesthetics of the groups, as well as helping the characters find their true feelings, can actually be dated back to Project Diva X. The game gives a story where the player has to help Miku restore planets with different attributes, themes, and different kinds of songs, all while using their music.
• One True Pairing: Several pairings have come from the game, but according to fandom content and data, the top pairings are Kanade/Mafuyu, Mizuki/Ena, Akito/Toya, Kohane/An, and Rui/Tsukasa.
• One True Threesome: In the western fanbase, it's very common for shippers to ship all four members of Wonderlands X Showtime together as a polycule. It also happens for the members of Vivid BAD SQUAD in the same community, though it's far less common due to An/Kohane and Akito/Toya being the preferred couples. Poly shipping is also quite popular in feminine units, especially with 25ji.
• Padding: A good portion of the Connect Live Rehearsal Edit was spent saying goodbye to the fans, spanning over several minutes as the characters walked around the stage waving to everyone in the crowd.
• Pandering to the Base: Word of God admitted in an interview that the reason Miku gets preferential treatment is because... she's Miku, the most popular Virtual Singer of the six and of them all. It's also explained that this was a carry-over from Project Diva, where she's also very much the center of attention and prioritized over the others.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: New players that are unfamiliar with Vocaloid tend to assume that Virtual Singers originated from Colorful Stage! until informed otherwise, similarly to what used to happen with Project DIVA.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: When ships aren't being identified using emojis, another common way to refer to them is using combinations of their names. The most common examples of these for ships are:
  • Leo/need: IchiSaki for Ichika/Saki and Shihonami or HonaShiho for Honami/Shiho
  • MORE MORE JUMP: MinoHaru for Minori/Haruka and ShizuAi for Shizuku/Airi
  • Vivid BAD SQUAD: AnHane or AnKoha for An/Kohane and AkiToya or TouAki for Akito/Toya
  • Wonderlands x Showtime: TsukaEmu or Emukasa for Tsukasa/Emu and RuiNene for Rui/Nene. As for the group's popular same-sex pairings, there's also Ruikasa for Rui/Tsukasa and EmuNene for Emu/Nene
  • Nightcord at 25:00: KanaMafu or MafuKana for Kanade/Mafuyu and MizuEna for Mizuki/Ena
  • Virtual Singers: KaiMiku for KAITO/Miku, KaiMei for KAITO/MEIKO, RinLen for Rin/Len, MeiLuka for Meiko/Luka, KaiLen for KAITO/Len and etcetera...
• Realism-Induced Horror: Many players praise the characterization of Mafuyu's mother for being a chilling and accurate representation of an emotionally abusive and manipulative parental figure, and can attest to how and why Mafuyu took so long to escape from the abuse based on the techniques that Mafuyu's mother used to get Mafuyu to obey her. From gaslighting Mafuyu to attempting to isolate Mafuyu from people who actually care about her, along with her strong conviction that only she knows what is best for her daughter, and does not see her behaviour to be in the wrong.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Kotaro, Akito's composer friend initially gained the ire from fans due to his action of sabotaging An and Kohane's performance in the first Vivid Bad Squad unit story. However, when the Stray Bad Dogs event story was released, the story shows Kotaro being a loyal friend of Akito and approached the other Vivid Bad Squad members in concern of Akito pushing himself to his limits. This act of loyalty caused fans to see Kotaro in a more favorable light.
  • Emu's older brothers were also saved due to their Character Development allowing them to become nicer to their sister. By Pop of my Heart, only Shousuke shows exasperation at her energy, but is mostly Tsundere about it, while Keisuke is a Cool Big Bro.
• Ron the Death Eater: In the west, Akito's detractors tend to exaggerate his Jerkass tendencies, ignoring the fact that even before his character development he wasn't that bad of a guy. His sister Ena gets similar treatment for the same reasons.

Tropes S-Z

• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The event point gain calculation for the first event. Event point and badge gain scaled with the length of the song, causing Melt to be the most picked song due to it being the longest song. The developers had to rebalance the point gains for songs for future events.
  • The first event itself consisted only of an event shop, a ranking table, and an event story, without a point ladder milestone reward like other gacha rhythm games. Subsequent events added slightly more items to be bought in the event token shop but they still lack an event point ladder milestone reward.
  • The Cheerful Carnival event format. Broken matchmaking, the imbalance of team members ^note during the first event, Odango had more member than Sakuramochi that a patch had to be implemented to prevent players from going to Odango , and the fact that it needs 10 players with a stable connection just to start a LIVE, made it a very unpopular event format even post-patching.
  • Unlike other versions of the game, COLORFUL STAGE! has rather intrusive pop-ups and notification icons directing players to the Shop to spend money on Microtransactions, which has become somewhat frustrating for players since they are unable to be turned off.
  • Similar to other mobile idol/gacha rhythm games, the game's main scoring system is based not only on your performance but on your team as well, meaning that as a measure of player performance, score means virtually nothing, as well as any specifics of your run besides "Clear", "Full Combo", and "All Perfect". Therefore someone who only wants to play Colorful Stage! as a rhythm game and ignore the gacha card-collecting aspect will have to keep track of their plays manually. There is a mode that uses scoring based strictly on player ability, Rank Match, but that mechanic is not available for single-player play.
• Shipping: As of the game's 2.5th anniversary, these ships are the most common in the fandom. While cross-over does happen, it's less common than these established, and seemingly supported pairings:
  • Vivid BAD SQUAD: Akito/Touya and An/Kohane are extremely popular thanks to their steadily supplied official ho yay and les yay.
  • Wonderlands x Showtime: Emu/Nene and Rui/Tsukasa for the same-sex pairings. Tsukasa/Emu and Rui/Nene are common for the het pairings.
  • 25-ji, Nightcord de.: Mizuki/Ena, Mafuyu/Kanade. Mafuyu/Ena and Mafuyu/Mizuki are popular too, due to both Ena and Mizuki getting events that focus on their relationships with Mafuyu.
  • MORE MORE JUMP!: Minori/Haruka, Shizuku/Airi
  • Leo/need: Ichika/Saki, Shiho/Honami (particularly in Japanese fandom)
  • One of the most popular cross-unit ships is Mafuyu/Emu, especially since the game itself gives plenty of material to work with.
  • While Honami/Kanade was already one of the more popular cross-unit pairings, it gained more relevance after they were the main characters of the 2023 wedding event.
  • Rui/Mizuki is also quite popular, due to their shared background and parallels.
  • The Virtual Singers themselves are interesting in that when they're not being shipped with each other, some of their variants are shipped with the characters from the same Sekai:
    • Leo/need: Miku/Ichika, KAITO/Ichika, Miku/Luka, Miku/KAITO^note Usually based around the fact that they're both born from Ichika's feelings
    • Wonderlands x Showtime: Rui/KAITO, Tsukasa/KAITO, Miku/KAITO, Luka/MEIKO
    • MORE MORE JUMP!: Haruka/KAITO, Rin/Len, Miku/Rin
    • Vivid BAD SQUAD: Rin/Len, Miku/KAITO, Luka/KAITO, KAITO/MEIKO, Luka/MEIKO^note Shipping KAITO/MEIKO/Luka as a polycule is a fairly popular option in the western fanbase
    • 25-ji, Nightcord de.: Miku/Mafuyu, Miku/Kanade, Miku/Rin, Luka/MEIKO
• Ship Mates: The fanbase has several per-character combination:
  • Vivid BAD SQUAD: It may as well be "Ship Mates: the unit". Players who ship Akito/Toya are more often than not also fans of An/Kohane. Likewise, though more rare, fans who ship Akito/An also tend to be fans of Toya/Kohane. Even the very few, those who ship Akito/Kohane also tend to ship Toya/An.
  • Wonderlands x Showtime: It's unlikely to find someone who ships Tsukasa/Emu or Rui/Nene and not have them ship the other prominent heterosexual pairing. The same thing happens with people who ship the same-sex pairings, although slightly less often.
  • 25-ji, Nightcord de.: Mafuyu/Kanade shippers tend to ship Mizuki/Ena, and vice versa for Mizuki/Ena shippers.
  • MORE MORE JUMP!: Haruka/Minori shippers tend to also ship Shizuku/Airi.
  • Leo/need: Particularly in Japanese fandom, people who ship Ichika/Saki usually will also ship Shiho/Honami, and vice versa.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Although Tsukasa and Mafuyu have never interacted in the game proper, there are some fics and art shipping them together after the 'Imprisoned Marionette' and 'Run! Sports Festival!' events; it's also possibly due to the sheer difference in their personalities.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: A few instances have happened since the game launched.
  • Due to the heavily ship-fueled nature of Vivid BAD SQUAD as a group, there have been some upsets between those who ship the heterosexual pairings An/Akito and Toya/Kohane versus those that ship Akito/Toya and An/Kohane, primarily in the western fanbase. Either side can be very aggressive, with dissections about the partner dynamics and whether or not it's meant to be read as Homoerotic Subtext happening frequently.
  • Similarly to the above, this has also occasionally happened between those who ship Tsukasa/Emu and Rui/Nene vs Rui/Tsukasa and Emu/Nene.
  • An odd example happens in the JP and KR fanbases where some fans have debated the "correct" order of the Akito and Toya pair, as in whether it should be Akito/Toya or Toya/Akito, with either one being the Uke or the Seme in the ship depending on how they're ordered. Interestingly, this doesn't happen often with An/Kohane (outside of memes) due to the seme/uke dynamic not really being a thing in Yuri pairings.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The unit stories do their job in introducing the characters and general backstory of the groups, but are poorly indicative of how the characters develop in the event stories, which is where the bulk of their characterization and backstory takes place. Many fans will tell you that writing and characters become much more likable once you get past the unit story and actually start digging into the event stories.
• Stoic Woobie: Mafuyu used to be a normal girl with dreams and aspirations of her own, but years of constant pressure from her family and peers to conform to the image of a "perfect girl" that everyone saw her as caused her to finally snap and lose her sense of self, eventually losing her ability to feel and growing a nihilistic sense of emptiness and suicidal depression that manifested in the form of a Sekai. She's exceptionally good at hiding her issues and everyone except Emu is completely unaware that there's anything wrong with her until the other 25-ji members see her for who she is. Incidentally, her complex character attracted a lot of fan attention, and she's one of the most popular characters in the game.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Clipping for 3DMV models is a problem in this game, particularly in the department of hair and clothes:
    • Len cannot wear hats and is rarely given hats that cover his entire head because his spikes will pierce through them. The developers attempted to rectify this in June 2022 by making it so Len's hair would flatten when wearing certain hair accessories, though this has created its own problem when Len wears headbands◊. Len also received several limited hairstyles that smooth out his spiked hair considerably, making it easier for him to wear accessories.
    • Hatsune Miku also has this problem due to the length of her twin tails, which tend to pass through her body when she's dancing in MV's and Virtual Lives.
    • During Virtual Lives, Leo/needs instruments will at times have their outfits clip through them.
    • The hat from An's Loving Sunflower costume was removed in the official upload of the ''Machi'' MV because her arms would've clipped through the hat during some parts of the choreography. The hat from Nene's Innocent Girl costume was removed in the official upload of the ''Hakoniwa no Coral'' MV for the same reason.
  • In general, the 3DMV models are low quality compared to other competing mobile rhythm games. For example, the textures on outfits were blurry until HD textures were introduced in 2022. This is only one of the many issues models have:
    • Accessories for pass outfits have an issue where they're either painted on or incredibly stiff if not due to models lacking proper physics. This is especially common for mission-pass outfits.
    • Baggy male clothing tends to fit poorly on male models, making them look like they're wearing airy potato sacks. For particularly egregious examples, there's Akito's "Old Days Boy" outfit and Len's "Bloomy Sky Hoodie".
    • Once again, due to the game's lack of proper physics for clothing, stiffness is also a recurring issue, as evidenced by the front flap of Toya's "Dream Scenery Style" outfit.
    • The 3D modelers also have an issue with making parts of outfits transparent. For example, if part of an outfit is transparent in the concept art, it will be a solid color on the 3D model.
  • If you look closely, you'll notice that the notes appear to slow down as they approach the judgment line (similar to the "Brake" modifier in DanceDanceRevolution). As it turns out, this is because the note moves at a constant velocity relative to the screen while growing bigger, resulting in a failed illusion of 3D visuals. Had the notes been coded to move "faster" as they get closer, it would be a more believable "perspective" effect.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Some fans have pointed out that the game's Kagamine Len version of "Lost One no Goukoku" has very similar tuning to this fan remix of the song, to the point where some suspect it is the fan version but redone in NT.
  • It's confirmed it's the same person, cillia, who tuned Len's VB, specifically for the song.
• Tainted by the Preview: Compared to "Yaminabe!!!!", which was almost universally positively received, cosMo-P's "Daijoubu Desu ka?" was met with some hesitancy by the playerbase after the results of the second ProSeka ULTIMATE contest, albeit not because of the song itself. While cosMo is acknowledged as an extremely talented artist who almost exclusively specializes in making brutally hard songs, him winning a spot in both the first and second ULTIMATE contests was perceived by some fans to be a little bit unfair, partly because not only is he already represented multiple times in the game but also him entering the contest at all and winning pushes out smaller-scale artists who would have otherwise appreciated the exposure.
• That One Attack:
  • The game's variable note size mechanic has been the cause of many headaches, but none so much as the accursed small notes. They're simply notes with hitboxes half as big as "normal" notes, but in a game where you don't really have time to stop and think about where to put your thumb/finger to hit notes, having to be more accurate than usual about where exactly you put your tap can be an exercise in frustration. It's even more difficult with hold notes since you must also accurately follow the slide with very little wiggle room to under- or overcompensate. Level 26 slow songs adore these kinds of notes since it's one of the only ways Colorful Palette can make them hard enough to qualify as a MASTER chart, much to the bane of players who already struggle with the Level 26 difficulty range.
  • On the flip side, you have oversized notes. They're much easier to hit due to their massive hitbox, but the difficulty with them is that they make sightreading a huge pain in the ass since you have to distinguish them from "normal-sized" notes on the fly, and in the higher-level MASTER charts they tend to come interspersed with other note sizes just to make the charts even more confusing to look at.
• That One Level:
  • Every single cosMo song:
    • The accursed duo of legendarily hard cosMo songs, "Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu" and "Hatsune Miku no Gekishou", return with a vengeance from the Project DIVA series, being the only songs in the game rated Level 33 on MASTER at the time they were added, and having appropriately difficult charts to match. As if to further emphasize the point, they were the only songs whose previews on YouTube are uploaded with their MASTER charts, and despite the game's substantially large player base, only 918 players have ever gotten an All Perfect on "Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu" within six months of service (and even then, chances are some might've used cheat tools). To give you the idea how hard it is, witness one of those 918 players in action.
    • As if literally threatening their playerbase, the cosmo-P song "Machine Gun Poem Doll" was introduced on the 1st Anniversary WonderShow Channel with footage of the song's MASTER chart, and the cover art for the song features a mockup of the chart with a bullet hole through the player's depleting LIFE gauge. When the song was finally released at October 3 2021, the chart itself is brutal, with an Expert Chart of level 31^explanationThe most difficult Expert songs were at level 29 at their highest with 1730 notes to hit for a full combo, that is just 12 notes short from "Hatsune Miku no Gekishou" on Master difficulty. Additionally, there are no song cuts for this due to the song itself being short enough to be added to the game in its entirety, meaning you're playing the full song added onto the already difficult Expert and Master charts. Although for the top players at least, it was actually relatively easy by level 34 standards, with the first All Perfect being achieved in just 57 minutes.
    • "Hatsune Tenchikaibyaku Shinwa" is not a 33 like the other cosMo-P songs, being only a 32 on MASTER due to lacking some aspects of its sister songs such as the long high-speed sections. This is balanced by the fact that it's the longest song in the game at a whopping 3:02 (the same length as the infamous "Melt") and has 2021 notes. The Expert chart, though, counts as the hardest 28 in the game.
    • Cosmo came back in 2023 with his Proseka Ultimate contest winner, Yaminabe!!!!. Being the second song rated 37 on Master difficulty, this song introduces gimmicks, with the chart changing speed with the song no matter what you have your speed set to, meaning the chart can rapidly change speeds as the song speed changes frequently changes from anywhere between 75 and 300 BPM. As of writing, this is considered as the hardest song in the game, not only due to the gimmicks and note count of over 2000, but due to the pure note density^explanationThe song has 2015 notes and runs at a lenght of 2:09. The two songs with higher note counts, 'What's up? Pop!' and 'Hatsune Creation Myth', run for 2:40 and 3:02 respectively, meaning Yaminabe!!!! has more notes per second than either of these. and the fact that this song is almost impossible to clear wihtout using at least six fingers. The developers themselevs are aware of how brutal this chart is, posting a preview only for the Master chart instead of both the Hard and Master charts like all other songs rated at 34 or higher. However, once again, the first All Perfect was achieved within the day of release.
  • On the "songs that aren't cosMo songs" end, there are "Hibana - Reloaded", originally a level 33 in the rehearsal edit and reduced to a 32 for the game proper (for Master difficulty, on the new Append difficulty it is a level 34), and "Brand New Day", an original song that was added to the game as part of a contest. The latter quickly garnered a reputation as one of the hardest (and fastest!) songs in the game, being one of the few charts rated 32 on MASTER due to its absolutely ballistic tempo and note density.
  • Anyone who has played Project DIVA F likely recalls the horror show that is "Negaposi*Continues", a ridiculously frenetic song with a bizarre tempo. In SEKAI, sasakure.UK strikes again with "Tondemo Wonders", a similarly-ludicrous level 32 whose chart effectively reeks of chaotic energy and has mid-song tempo shifts to keep you on your toes.
  • "Six Trillion Years and Overnight Story" by Kemu makes its rounds in Colorful Stage!, and it's pace and tempo is brutal, especially in MASTER, where you will be facing a barrage of notes at such a short time when the song reaches it's chorus. It's even worse here than it had been in the sister game, BanG Dream, as it's MASTER chart level is rated 34, and the song duration is notably longer than it's sister game counterpart in general, making this a very hard Marathon Level song.
  • The three Performai songs featured in the game break the game's rules by being officially built around using your whole hand as the intended method of completion (although they're still theoretically Full Combo-able with two fingers), earning them a new, higher difficulty rating exceeding every other: 34. All of them are Nintendo Hard songs with excessively fast tempos and their own unique gimmicks to each chart. With that said, general consensus is that they're actually on par with the 33s in practice, with End Mark in particular being considered on par with the "easier" 33s like Gekishou and Machine Gun.
    • cosMo strikes back with "End Mark ni Kibou to Namida wo Soete", which is the longest of the three songs by a large margin and hammers the player with every trick in the book: high-speed chains, tricks and turns, flick spam, you name it.
    • "the EmpErroR" has some of the most brutal high-speed chains in the game made to test the player's speed, stamina, and pattern recognition in a moment's notice; one wrong step and the entire thing can fall apart in an instant.
    • "Don't Fight the Music" has bar none the most outrageous hold note patterns in the game (inspired by O.N.G.E.K.I.'s gameplay), and its few chain sections are also on par with "the EmpErroR" with how fast and hard they hit you.
  • "ÅMARA", yet another slugger from sasakure.UK released for the game's 2nd Anniversary, has some of the game's most excruciatingly painful hold note patterns and very nasty drumming sections that utilize wide notes and tiny notes to throw the player off. It even expands upon the "Don't Fight the Music" gimmick of overlaying tap notes on top of hold notes (and even hold notes over hold notes) to make sightreading even more of a struggle, on top of some wicked hand switching patterns for players to do both physical and mental gymnastics over.
  • The first Proseka Ultimate contest winner, What's Up? Pop!, broke the "all songs can be cleared with two fingers" rule, requiring at least 3 or 4 fingers to clear a good portion of the chart. Having a Master difficulty of 37, it instantly became the hardest song in the game (until the release of Yaminabe!!!!). The whole chart is extremely gruelling, continuing the trend of normal notes over the top of hold notes, even having hold notes over hold notes, all culminating in no more than four hold notes with flicks at the end of them, and to date has the highest note count at 2362 notes. It stands to be one of four songs that received a preview for its Master chart as well. Nonetheless, the first All Perfect was achieved within a few hours.
• That One Sidequest: The 2nd Anniversary Stamp Rally was cool in theory, but some of the stamp missions were absolutely brutal. Unit Stamp Cards had "Play a Multi-Live with 5 'Fan' Titles from X unit", which, if you did not have friends to play the game with, was essentially a Luck-Based Mission. Other stamp cards had even worse missions; highlights include the "Clear 'Journey' with an All PERFECT on all difficulties", which was basically impossible for the vast majority of players, and any of the gacha stamp cards, which outright require spending money.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The forced use of NT has been a hot topic for Western fans since NT is an inherently unfinished product at the time of the game's release^note As of the end of 2021, only Miku NT has seen an official release, and it's still in active development via post-launch updates and fans already noticing problems with the software that wasn't present with its VOCALOID predecessor.
    • While Miku NT herself generally sounds "fine", she suffers from the issue of sounding the same in almost every song she covers. Fans wonder if the tuners are even attempting to use variations like Sweet/Dark or if it's an issue with the NT software not really distinguishing much between the different voice bank styles compared to VOCALOID. This issue is more obvious in more recent songs where the original producer used "unique" tuning which is lost in the transition to the SEKAI Versions since as far as anyone's aware all NT tuning is done in-house by the developers.
    • Criticisms for KAITO, Len and Rin have been on the lighter side due to being better received by fans, with some saying that Rin and Len NT barely sound any different from their V 4 X voicebanks. Meanwhile, MEIKO and Luka have received harsher criticisms than even Miku NT, though MEIKO as of recently has been deemed the worse one of the two, since Luka, at least in the newer songs, has the flaws in her NT voicebank hidden by higher pitches. Even so, fans are disappointed in her NT voicebanks lack of the mature, huskier tone that made her so popular back then. MEIKO, on the other hand, is said to sound bad in general, leading to claims that they're trying to make her sound like a completely different voicebank. In the Leo/needs commissioned song "Pulse of the Meteor", MEIKO's tuning has been criticized, with some saying that she sounded more like Miku than herself during her solo lines.
  • Speaking of which, "Patchwork Staccato"'s SEKAI Ver. is considered one of the weaker covers, as while the singers do well enough, the song is changed significantly to accommodate the vocal ranges of Airi and Shizuku, which some feel detracts from the emotional effect that the original had.
  • The Sekai cuts of most songs (Melt being a notable exception) are different from those in other game's that said songs appear in, such as the main Project Diva series, and the changes have often not been very well received. In particular, the Hitorinbo Envy cut has been widely panned because due to how much of the song is cut. Not that this bothers the top rankers much. "Cendrillion" also received a similar reaction, though the extremely long intro that takes up a majority of the songs time serves to justify the cut in a way.
  • In an attempt to combat the visual bug where Super Fever would sometimes be displayed as normal Fever, some songs had their Fever Chance sections extended, others moved earlier, and in particular, some of Hitorinbo Envy's skill activation sections were also moved earlier. All these were seen as nerfs to the affected charts (especially for Envy) which were naturally not well received.
  • A number of new changes and nerfs announced during the game's first anniversary live stream were met with negative reception, such as Birthday and Special Lives having crystals replaced with Vocal tickets, Gacha cards giving a higher boost than event and already obtained cards (Up to 70% versus 25% for everything else), the cards Master Rank adding to the boost, the amount of points obtained during multi-live being additive instead of multiplicative like they were originally, changing the mission pass to include items the player could obtain during the weekly events and less crystals as a result, making the "Value Set" cost paid crystals instead of real money^note meaning to buy the "Value Set" you first have to buy paid crystals and then the set itself only for the rolls the player gets in return of buying the "Value Set" turning into a roll ticket ^note meaning the player won't be able to use do the daily discounted paid solos if they buy the "Value set" with crystals unless they either have or buy more crystals. To several players, these changes seem unnecessary at best or money-grubbing at worst, since nearly all of them point the player in the direction of spending money on the game. ^note The removal of free crystals during Birthday Lives has been deemed the worst example of this, as the player won't even be given a free solo to roll during the character's concurrent Birthday Gacha. Not to mention the fact that while Birthday Lives aren't as frequent as event Virtual Lives and special occasion Lives are even rarer, the amount of crystals that could be obtained from them added up over time to thousands which was beneficial to Free to Play players who wanted to avoid spending money. The fact that these changes were announced along with another upcoming paid piece of content called Connect Live, a special type of Virtual Live that is supposed to feel more like an actual concert experience than Virtual Live, and with the announcement that the anniversary costumes are paid gacha bonuses only furthered the accusations that Colorful Palette wants to gradually shift the game to favor people who spend money in the game.
  • The SEKAI Ver. of "The Lost One's Weeping" made the odd decision to change the singing pitch for the chorus, where instead of being a mid-range it's now Ichika and Rin singing high and Shiho singing low, which made a few fans complain that it arguably sounds worse than any of the other versions.
  • While most of the other group logos were generally well received, the English counterpart to Nightcord's group logo was perceived as being weird and amateurish compared to the highly-stylized Japanese logo, with many fans complaining that it looks very similar to the oft-derided Comic Sans font.
  • The Colorful Stage translation gets heat for its odd translation of the dialogue, relationship dynamics, and inconsistencies, among other things. A notably odd translation that went memetic was Haruka's "But that's showbiz, baby" home screen dialogue, which was in equal parts hated and thought to be hilarious because of how Out of Character it was for her say.
  • Some fans can get rather upset when pitch shifts are applied to SEKAI Versions, despite the fact that this is typically only done out of necessity to make the songs actually doable by the performers' vocal ranges.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some players feel that Akito, and more rarely, An, should have been the unit leader (or in this case, "representative") of Vivid BAD SQUAD in place of Kohane. In Akito's case, it's because he has a more clearly defined protagonist role and leadership qualities compared to the rest of the group, as well as a more realistic growth arc into a respected singer. As well, some felt Akito may have fit due to the "unit leader group" needing another male vocalist, as Tsukasa is the only one in the group that represents the male characters in the cast. For An, some fans believe that she should have been the unit representative due to fitting the "look" more, and her direct connection with everyone that performed at RAD WEEKEND (Ken is her father, Nagi and Taiga are her surrogate aunt and uncle) and because she has the longest history and experience with street music in general, having been involved in it since her childhood. An and Akito are also the ones who appeared in Vivid BAD SQUAD's opening CG, with An being the one monologuing. It's been pointed out that, compared to the other unit representatives, Kohane hasn't done anything to explain why she's treated as the face of her group, other than play a vague Audience Surrogate role in the unit story. ^note Hatsune Miku is Hatsune Miku, Ichika is the leader of Leo/need and is meant to represent the VOCALOID fans in the audience, Minori is the one who gives the other members of her group hope to become idols again, Tsukasa is the sole creator of Wonderlands x Showtimes SEKAI, and Kanade was tasked with saving Mafuyu by Miku
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some fans are disappointed that Vivids and BAD DOGS merge into a single group at the end of the Vivid BAD SQUAD main story, as they felt their rivalry as two separate units should have been expanded on more before they decide that they are stronger together. The fact that they had little reason to unite in the main story and it took them several events to start acting like a proper group didn't help this viewpoint.
• Underused Game Mechanic: For those who despise card-based scoring and prefer a scoring system based solely around player ability, there is such a scoring system...but only in Rank Matches, which are PvP affairs. You can't use that scoring system in single-player play.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The reveal of non-Crypton Vocaloid songs being on the table for song picks (starting with "Charles" and "Fragile", sung by flower and GUMI respectively) surprised many fans, as in DIVA this was never able to happen since the series was only about the Crypton Vocaloids and in mirai it was only GUMI songs where she sang with a Crypton character. This change opened up a huge department of picks that fans considered previously impossible, with future song releases including songs from IA and even VY2V3 (for "Totemo Itai Itagaritai").
  • Due to event story's only introducing the male Virtual Singers in the Co-ed groups Wonderlands x Showtime and Vivid Bad Squad, many players believe that the female-only groups wouldn't have Len and/or Kaito appear at all in their corresponding SEKAI's. When the More More Jump-focused event, "Happy Lovely every day!" was released in August 2021, More More Jump Len was included in the list of focus characters to appear, surprising the players.
  • Applying to Len again; no one expected N25's Len to show up before N25 KAITO, as KAITO had been teased in an April Fools' Day area conversation about two months before the event introducing Len went live.
  • Or unexpected Vocaloid producer. Colorful Palette commissioned the long retired Furukawa-P to make the Nightcord at 25:00 event song "kimi no yoruwo kure" which has a Virtual Singer version that doesn't use NT, meaning it was likely made by him as well. This shocked everyone who was familiar with the producer, as it was his first Vocaloid song in 11 years, as he retired from making Vocaloid music way back in 2011 after deleting all of his Vocaloid works. This has led fans to joke that Colorful Palette may be able to convince Hachi, another long-retired Vocaloid producer, to make a song for the game as well.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Taiga. In ’’Light Up the Fire’’, he drops a bombshell that RAD WEEKEND was a farewell to Nagi before her death and that the newer generation can’t expect to surpass RAD WEEKEND because their feelings can’t be enough to do so regardless of skill. He then proceeds to do a song battle against the younger generation in front of the whole town to humiliate them, not giving them a chance to process Nagi’s death. The death of his sister and losing Ken as a team mate doesn’t earn Taiga much sympathy considering his actions. Death and grieving is such a serious subject. Taiga seemingly tries to make the reveal of Nagi’s death as painful as possible, very likely traumatizing the younger generation in the process. Such actions can be viewed as not only inexcusable, but also unforgivable. It’s also worth noting Taiga’s kind moments are directed towards Kohane and Akito as those two remind him of old team mates, making his kindness seem more out of nostalgia and less out of the goodness of his heart.
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Tsukasa is the best example of this trope. In-universe, he's seen as weird and annoying by a lot of the characters he interacts with due to his loudness and massive ego. In the fanbase, however, he is by far the most popular and profitable character to come out of the game, even beating out the members of the popular unit Nightcord at 25:00.
  • While not widely disliked as a character in-universe, as a singer Akito Shinonome is regarded as being the weakest of the group, who has fallen behind everyone else in Vivid BAD SQUAD as of Bout for Beside You. This view was initially implied by non-playable characters like Arata but later reinforced by Mafuyu and Mizuki when discussing the vocal performance of each Vivid BAD SQUAD performer individually. However, out of the game's story, Akito is one of the game's most popular singers, being one of the main reasons why Vivid BAD SQUAD had become so popular musically within the fanbase.
  • Vivid BAD SQUAD's iteration of KAITO. He's the Virtual Singer group resident Butt-Monkey who doesn't get much respect from his pupils Len and Rin, who Akito has openly expressed his dislike toward, and who MEIKO is often exasperated with due to his childish, carefree nature. The only ones who seem to tolerate his behavior are Miku, Kohane, and Touya. Despite this, he's fairly popular with the fanbase who likens his traits to old, beloved fan depictions of KAITO.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Some foreign fans are confused as to why the Nightcord characters can't just get therapy and cut the knot, despite mental health treatment being a very rare and actively-shunned field in Japan due to societal differences.
  • Episode 6 of Petit SEKAI involves the girls of Leo/need trying out various styles until the end punchline of the characters being dressed as lions, as a pun on their band name. Unfortunately, the joke didn't land with everyone, as rather than simply being dressed as lions, the characters recreate a stereotypical "tribal" look complete with darkened skin and make-up. The episode garnered controversy due to presenting Blackface and stereotypes as part of a gag, with viewers criticizing it under the official Youtube channel, Discord, and Twitter account. As a result of these complaints, the episode was pulled from the channel indefinitely and an apology was issued. However, while a large part of the fanbase was satisfied with this conclusion, many members of the Eastern fanbase were perplexed, not seeing any issue with the episode due to associating the make-up and tan with Gyaru Girl culture instead. A censored version of the episode was eventually posted, with the African lion-themed outfits being exchanged for a more generic Gyaru Girl look with patterned sweaters, lion ear headbands and no make-up.
  • The differing reactions to the Vivid BAD SQUAD subunit BAD DOGS' cover of "Ifuudoudou" featuring KAITO really boils down to this trope. Many members of the fandom talk negatively about the cover, due to the strong sexual themes of the song accompanied by the fact it's sung by two characters who are underaged. However, in the game's home country and various other portions of the fandom, the cover is simply viewed as proper Fanservice to be expected to come out of this sort of game, and it has gone on to be one of the most popular covers to come out of the game. As well, on release, it was the most viewed 3DMV for a time, as of current having over 6 million views on the game's official YouTube channel. In other words, it just comes down to the values of the listener.
• Vanilla Protagonist:
  • While you'll find few people that think their stories are badly written, many fans have this perception of Leo/need and MORE MORE JUMP! due to believing that their stories are retreads of storylines that people had grown bored of reading about. MORE MORE JUMP! in particular, suffers from this, and one of the most common explanations you'll see from people who don't care for the unit is their disinterest in reading about idols overcoming their hardships and rising to stardom.
  • While it's debatable as to whether Kohane can be considered the "protagonist" of the Vivid BAD SQUAD storyline, she is often accused of being vanilla compared to the rest of her group due to her slower and less noticeable character development beyond her inexplicably rapid improvements in singing, her lack of quirks, the passive role she plays in the overarching Vivid BAD SQUAD storyline when she's not singing, and, most critically, her lack of a proper backstory that sets up the character she is today.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: A lot of the game's original 2DMV's are a spectacle, as the editors know how to take a set of static images of the characters and build interesting visuals around them such as in "Ray" and "Tricologe". The 2DMV for the full SEKAI version of "Doctor=FunkBeat" takes the cake, as it's just as trippy, chaotic, and seizure-inducing as you would expect while still keeping to the theme of the song and the unit singing it.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Don't let the age rating, Virtual Singers, and bright and cheerful aesthetics trick you. The game's plot closely touches on topics such as suicide, depression, bullying, and Abusive Parents portrayed realistically enough to make some viewers uncomfortable. Songs featured in the game also cover a vast range of topics, from idol music to dark, depressing music to sexual lyrics and swearing.
• What the Hell, Costuming Department?: Colorful Stage! has its fair share of questionable outfits.
  • One of the widely agreed upon complaints about Colorful Stage! is that Hatsune Miku is the only Virtual Singer to have her appearance change significantly to match the SEKAI she appears in while the other Virtual Singers only change clothes. While the default character designs aren't much of a problem in SEKAI where the color palette is vivid, their bright hair colors prove to be rather jarring against the dull backdrop of Empty SEKAI. The Kagamines in particular are victims of this due to their bright yellow hair.
  • The Christmas-themed outfits from On This Holy Night, I Sing, which are a mess of bright colors, differing material lengths, string lights, and Christmas presents attached to the dresses, are widely considered to be ugly and unwearable even by the characters they're unlocked from.
  • While the outfits were overall well-received, some did question the choice to have the members of Nightcord at 25:00 dress up like nuns with a stained glass pattern on the dress to mirror the windows of a church for their second-anniversary outfits, seemingly leaning into the fandom in-joke that Kanade is a religious figure.
  • A whole section can be dedicated to Vivid BAD SQUAD:
    • One of the most complained about aspects of Kohane's otherwise well-liked "Awakening Beat" costume is the shoes. Open-toed platform-sneaker hybrids with stockings that perfectly shape themself between her toes and for some reason have pink nail polish painted on top of them. A pair of normal heels similar to An's outfit could have done to trick but they went above and beyond.
    • Akito perhaps has the oddest-looking default outfit in the entire cast, as he wears a light yellow hoodie with a black and yellow jacket over it, an orange flannel hoodie tied around his waist, gym pants, and black and turquoise loose-fitting basketball shoes. Interestingly, the other outfits he's been shown wearing in his cards aren't nearly as confusing as this one.
    • Toya for some reason wears four layers in his default outfit: loose fitting red shirt with a loose-fitting white logo shirt on top of it, a purple hoodie, and a jacket on top.
    • While Kohane's default outfit is otherwise well put together, a number of fans expressed confusion at the fact that her "Smile" shirt worn underneath her varsity-style jacket is short sleeve despite looking like a proper sweater. This led fans to believe Akito's yellow hoodie was also either short sleeve or sleeveless, and they rejoiced when it was revealed that his sleeves are elbow length.
    • Vivid BAD SQUAD's unlockable outfits tend to be a hit or a miss in a lot of events, with some of their unlockable outfits only looking good on the character it was initially unlockable for. The male characters in the unit are especially victims of this, especially since they're most of the baggy clothing not translating well into 3D.
    • Vivid BAD SQUAD's Second Anniversary unit outfits are either the oddest looking of the bunch to some or outright ugly to others due to the material of their dresses/jackets (often compared to handbag or car seat material), the oversized hat that doesn't fit any character (and which the official artists seem to refuse to draw the characters wearing properly) and the short pants the male characters are wearing. While Ixima explains that they wanted to convey the diversity of street fashion by showing the characters wearing sports mode fashion to contrast their usual sports casual outfits, the fans feel like the mark was missed and the outfits were a step down compared to last years.
• Woolseyism:
  • "Kuyamu to Kaite Mirai" is given the title "Composing the Future" in COLORFUL STAGE!, which is a loose translation at best but manages to concisely convey the song's relevance to the Nightcord story arc.
  • In Japanese, Nightcord at 25:00 is referred to as "Niigo" for short, which is the numbers "2" and "5" pronounced together. Since this name only works in Japanese, this was altered into the similarly-catchy "N25" for the English script.
  • While the decision received mixed reactions from the western fanbase, the COLORFUL STAGE decision to have the cast use pronouns based on how they perceive Mizuki is the most realistic route they could have taken rather than having the characters use gender-neutral pronouns by default. This is because a majority of the cast is just as in the dark about Mizuki as the audience is, save for the few characters that know about Mizuki's past and are implied to know about their secret.^note Rui, Mizuki, An to a degree, and the Virtual Singers As such, It wouldn't make sense for someone like Ena, who is unaware of Mizuki's past and who Mizuki fears learning their secret, to refer to them gender-neutrally. There is still the issue that too many characters refer to Mizuki gender-neutrally at times, as realistically it would make more sense for the characters to assume that Mizuki is female due to the way they present, and nothing indicates why they would be aware of their ambiguous gender.
• X Meets Y: Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA meets CHUNITHM meets BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!.

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