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The IDOLM@STER Series Producer Yozo Sakagami Steps Down

posted on by Joanna Cayanan
Sakagami steps down after 18 years in the franchise

idolmaster_11
The official website for Yozo Sakagami will step down from his position at the end of March. Sakagami originally planned to step down from his position on the franchise's 15th anniversary in 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the franchise's plans were delayed or suspended, and he decided to stay until the situation settled down.

In a separate announcement also on the franchise's website, 765 Production general manager Kōji Hatano stated that there are no plans to appoint a replacement for Sakagami yet, but the franchise's projects and plans will continue as scheduled.

The IDOLM@STER franchise's anime series projects include October, respectively before their television premiere.

The franchise most recently PROJECT IM@S vα-liv project, which will launch in spring. The story will feature apprentice idols who are aiming to debut on streaming platforms.

The IDOLM@STER franchise began as an arcade game in 2005, with the player tasked with producing idols in a fledgling idol company, managing practice schedules, concerts, CD releases, and time off. The game was first ported to the Xbox 360 in 2007, and had a sequel game in 2011, which finalized the first 13 characters of the franchise. Later spinoffs include The Idolm@ster SideM, which focused on male idols all of whom had "unique reasons" for becoming idols; and The IDOLM@STER Shiny Colors, a mobile game and the most recent entirely new entry in the franchise, with new female idols and a return to gameplay features from the first two games.

The first anime adaptation for the franchise was 2007's Idolmaster: Xenoglossia, a spinoff THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE: Kagayaki no Mukōgawa e!. The studio and some of the original staff returned for both 2015's The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls and 2017's The Idolm@ster SideM anime.

Source: The IDOLM@STER franchise's website (link 2) via Gematsu



Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.

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