Idolm@ster

The anime with a big following rivaling touhou and vocaloid and had ridiculously high production value. Well, that's not the reason I'm making the post, its more like a re-evaluation of the characters that I had in mind from what I've known of Idolm@ster before watching the anime and from when I watched Xenoglossia. (Which was a horrible rendition of Idolm@ster, I admit)

I'll start with the characters that I had little knowledge of, because they weren't in Xenoglossia and were classified as rival characters in some of the last couple games. Heck, I didn't even know who Hibiki was (when the anime first started I was trying to guess that she was Chihaya, which was obviously wrong even when I was thinking about it back then)

Hibiki- Fairly generic, usual run of the mill fang type character. A good amount of spunk and overall a nice average character. I'm not moe-ing over her character, but I don't really see anything about her either. How she looks is how she acts, too.

Takane- Well... she's weird. I guess this can be stated as pretty obvious, but at first her character design looks really nice and could potentially be seen as a (new?) favorite of mine, but I can't really get around her personality. There's nothing wrong with it (as is the case with almost all characters in Idolm@ster) but it just doesn't work, especially the way she speaks... well... I guess some people will go after it, I suppose... :V

Miki- I had a little more experience with this character as this was the character my friend chose when I watched him play a little bit of Idolm@ster. Her character in the game seemed quite a bit different from how the anime portrayed her, which showed her being more selfish and not quite the friendly ideal idol I would have initially made her out to be. To me there's nothing wrong with that, but the selfishness could get a little bit "eh..." sometimes. But hey, everyone (well, lots of people) like Miki anyway so why not. Probably not one in my ideal idol group though.
Oh right. DUCK-SENSEI!!!!!!

Makoto- Uh... it makes me wonder, are there really idols that act like cross-genders and appeal to the opposite gender...? Well, at least I'd be really surprised if there's a trap idol like that DS game... >.> Makoto is still cool, but in a manly way. (Yes, Makoto would be sad...)

Azusa- HER HAIR... WHY... HER HAIR... ;o; *ahem* Uh, basically an Alicia (from ARIA) clone. She's pretty cute and funny, I dare say I have a better opinion of her now than when coming into the show. In fact, I believe the episode themed around her is arguably the best episode in the entire series... it was the episode that made me say "Man, this show is GREAT." She's really popular too, seeing a lot of doujinsh-- eer, fanart of her around... >.>
ALSO her dancing is the best out of Ryuuguu Komachi...okay well crap. I'm liking her more than I expected aren't I.

Ritsu- Good job letting her be the producer, considering she was my least favorite character, appearance wise, out of the idols. The producer role suits her quite nicely. It's about the same image I have of Makoto: a cool person, but I dunno about her being an idol. Her episode though made some points out where she can be cute. Still, I think she works well as a producer, and should stay that way.

Mami/Ami: Coming in, they were my favorite idol(s). But while watching the show, to me, something just didn't click with them... they were great at times and definitely had some funny moments which I enjoyed, but... I think it was their style or something that put me off? I'm not entirely sure. I would still rank them higher than most other characters, and I still think they're pretty cute at times, but I guess their image started to come off more as "cool" or just "silly" at some points that made me lose moe interest in them over time.

Yayoi: On the other hand, they somehow managed to make the one character that has the worst fashion sense one of the most moe characters in the show. My opinion of Yayoi has skyrocketed in this show and now I regard her as one of the most moe characters in Idolm@ster. Her sense of style is HORRENDOUS, though, although this is not surprising given the background story they have of her. But when she is in that idol costume, and her voice that somehow squeaks with moe, man, she is just so cute.

Yukiho: She was my favorite character in Xenoglossia... up until a certain point, which at that point Xenoglossia really just flew down the drain in a lot of areas. I don't know if this is an aftereffect, but just like the twins I didn't see quite as much appeal in her anymore as I did before. But still, she's pretty nice, and I would say has more moe points than the twins.

Iori: Classic Tsundere. Even voiced by KugiRie. (Wow, KugiRie did Idolm@ster? Didn't know that until I watched the anime) Not much opinion on her. :V

Chihiya: First off, the Xenoglossia anime completely ruined her image for me (and probably other people) so unfortunately I can't get a good opinion of her. In spite of that, her story was pretty damn amazing in terms of empathy (and makes Idolm@ster a little more than just a happy-go-lucky show) and I give her props to that. However, her personality is pretty hard to like in my opinion, probably because she just seems so unsociable (which is a lot like me huh...).

Haruka: The main! The main is always the main! She was pretty cute in Xenoglossia (in spite of the way the show destroyed itself near the end) and she stays pretty cute in the anime. The conflicts she has at the end was pretty nice too, I daresay it was pretty nice to watch.

Overall the anime had a good feeling to it. It had the idealistic nature of Aria, for the most part, with more kira-kiraing from the idol part. There was still some random plots to spice the series up a little, but I guess it wasn't overdone so it wasn't too bad (I wouldn't have minded either way if they were taken out or not though).

SO THE PERFECT IDOL GROUP? I guess it would be some combination of Yayoi, Azusa, Haruka, Yukiho, and Ami/Mami...

I also think a couple of the DS idols looked cute but they weren't really emphasized in the anime D: