User blog comment:Mathea Leung/Aikatsu On Parade!/@comment-3487190-20190817140721

I try to stay in a neutral attitude, it is indeed interesting to see past characters interact across different generations, but it seems only interesting for anime-wise aspects, not DCD-wise. Here are the issues:

1) Is this the perfect plan BANDAI can come up with? -- regarding to the only half year of Aikatsu Friends! Jewel series. We know DCD games are all planned annually, which means BANDAI already planned to make Friends Jewel series only half year and the latter hlaf year would be the launch of Parade series. But just regarding to the characers, it doesn't seem that Alicia, Hibiki and Wakaba bust be tied with Friends series. Of course, there are also controversies such as some of the main idols didn't get main spotlights within this half year. I would think BANDAI could had managed to give a complete finale for Friends series within only one year, the next year immediately begins with Parade series, where Hibiki, Alicia and Wakaba are new characters here instead of in Friends seires. So that the half year "interruption" can be much less abrupt.

2) Would an allstars series be a chance to make up for what past series lost? It is still a very questionable part, given that the first part already give you Ichigo's SIXTH premium dress over a new dress for Sakuya, Juri or Rei. I do think the all-idol ballot campaign very interesting, but in a fair view BANDAI should volunteerly manage to take care of idols or brands that didn't have much spotlights in their respective series. Not that "oh Rinna you lost the ballot so sorry you won't see the light again" thing.

3) Is Parade series a promising evergreen project? Parade is half-Allstars as it shows. However it is still not an evergreen plan, new series still has to develop new characters and new stories. So hope that Parade series can manage to give new characters and new content. Otherwise, the worst case would be that it only manages to maintain several parts and it goes into history, soon replaced by a new series in the future.

As for the ballot, it sure would be nice if the triumph happens to be the poorly treated idol from past series (Shion, Koharu, etc) But the possiblity of Akari or Mikuru winning is still predictable. Probably Coco winning would be the most astonishing result since BANDAI would have to create a brand for her.