it is my great sickness that I saw the backgrounds in this PV and knew that I could probably recreate them with a mess of grid layouts

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IXIX

idolmaster has rarely cooked over the last few years, so I feel it imperative to mention when they are cooking in ways that surprise even a dinosaur fan like me. leading up to gakuen idolmaster’s release today, the latest from qualiarts (the folks behind the microscopic fabric detail in idoly pride), bamco has been releasing character PVs each day to drum up anticipation with all the talent they’ve got signed under the asobinotes umbrella, their in-house music label. a lot of them are fairly middling, and personally I’m waiting to hear if sasuke haraguchi is able to demonstrate any restraint, but hiro’s PV here is backed by a brazilian orchestra with arrangements done by arthur verocai. what the fuck? when do the performance credits for any franchise ever have a reason to drill down to individual horn and string players like this? oh, it’s also directed by wataru uekusa, arguably one of the best effects animators out there. little unreal to see where he’s landed since I frst saw him making videos for sasakure.

going to stop myself from writing more here because I could blab forever, but dis has a good writeup on sakugablog that gets to the point and contextualizes everything pretty well.