THE NEW UI IS HERE AND I HAVE....MIXED FEELINGS!!!!!! But mostly positive!!!!!!!!! Overall, I like a lot of the new aspects...which unfortunately means most of my gripes are about the function, not the form.


WELCOME TO THE NEW HOME SCREEN!!!!!! I honestly love how colorful and fun it is- it reminds me a lot of original Love Live, in a good way! I love that it's not afraid to be bright and almost tacky, especially when so many games lean towards minimalism :D
HOWEVER................I hate that a lot of the important features are now hidden behind buttons, including things I'd like to be able to see at a glance. BP (stamina), work tickets, and diamonds are now accessed by clicking the big star in the upper left that displays your rank, which looks cool but they don't belong within a menu. They're the sort of things that should be right there when you login. I also don't like that Story and Cards are no longer on the home screen- they're within the big star in the bottom right that says Produce, which is where most of the important shit is.

okay okay okay I'm not trying to write a tutorial here XD I've had a lot of reactions since it came back online approx ~24 hours ago...and now it's down for pre-event maintenance, hence why I'm rambling here.

There's also just a lot of hiding important things that shouldn't be hidden, imho. In the office item purchasing screen, it no longer tells you how many of each item you already have, unless you click on yet another button. The theme here is "plz put that back where you found it so help me" I guess :T

Seriously, the new UI is already bright and full of a bunch of fun shapes, I promise that keeping a few numbers/small images on there won't hurt. It'll just add to the organized chaos that I'm pretty sure they're going for! IT'S OKAY TO SHOW US INFO I PROMISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't wanna just be negative above the cut, so lemme say some more things I like~


the MEGA PHONE screen is honestly delightful- I think it's so fun!!!! I just wish that MV fitting room didn't take quite so many menus to get to :T

( many more images + new UI discussion under the cut, because I have a lot of feels )

OKAY. Okay. This was a lot of post, mostly about the JP enstars app, so lemme finish it off with proof that I actually left my house today: the boys at Costco~

I FINISHED KOHAKU'S BIG BOW TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So clearly it was time to take the nuis on an ~adventure~
Also, Pat and I had avoided going to the new Ebisu yesterday and could not pull that off again XD We wanted to see the (relatively) new Japanese store!!!

....but first we went to Chili's for dinner. It had a wait and I was really hungry and I had to work very hard not to throw a tantrum in the Chili's entryway, because I'm the strongest. It ended up being fine and the food was good and I survived waiting XD I was feeling particularly whiny and difficult earlier, which suuuuucked.

BUT EBISU WAS REALLY GOOD!!!! It has its own parking lot in Towson, which is a big plus! Also if this place had been there when I was in college, I would have been even more broke than I already was XD Pat I both kept marveling at how much it would have destroyed our finances back then, lmao.

Honestly, I was having a bad pain day so didn't stay as long as I would have liked...which was maybe a good thing? XD They had a lot of tasty looking snacks that I don't usually see at H Mart or Lotte Market, so I will definitely be going back to peruse more of those.

And then we came home and farted around for awhile, but tbh we had originally gone out for bubble tea - cuz a lot of bubble tea places are super cute for optimal nui photoshoot options - and then we didn't end up going. And I started working on this entry at like 9:45 pm, at which point I got disappointed that we never got bubble tea...

NEVER FEAR, GONG CHA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of their locations is open until 11 pm on the weekends, so we went back out~ However, they were out of boba...and a lot of other things.....but whatever, we had a nice time AND I got cute pictures ♥


they look so cute in the ita bag now!!!!!!!

( even more pics from the nui adventure! )

Anyway! I'm now very satisfied and exhausted. The JP enstars server is down for 24 hours of maintenance to roll out the new UI, so I'm sad it's and nervous about what it'll be like ;w; But the merge game has hit the ENG server + my favorite Knights event is happening, so it's not all bad.

ALSO I MAXED MY FIRST EVER GACHA CARD IN ENSTARS BY HAVING TWO COPIES OF REI'S FIRST FEATURE SCOUT COME HOME WITHIN 3 SCOUTS OF EACH OTHER??????


I was expecting it to be one of the multiple cards I have 4 copies of but nope!!!! Rei pulled ahead XD

( just more enstars squeeing and shit in here )

aaaaand I think I'm gonna play for FFVII~ baibai!

uhhhhhhhhhhhh my brain is mush because I've been in the enstars mines all day (playing the jp tour) but I have many thoughts about the whole two (2) chapters of story I read XD I usually read the whole thing at once, but I couldn't help but jump ahead to the bit that's Crazy:B + Madara because...okay, because I'm a simple man, I'm always hoping for kohamada crumbs.


the boys were also here for Kohaku + Madara interactions, clearly
AND IT FUCKING DELIVERED!!!!!!! Yeah, it was only two chapters, but they had a ton of back and forth, cute snarky bits, etc etc etc ;w; Rinne now has a nickname for Madara - Mikeneko-chan - and it's so fucking cute!!! I'm so glad someone finally called him a calico cat in text, it's important to me *w* And then Niki said that Kohaku and Madara looked like cats together, which was so fucking precious. Like. Yes, please compare my faves to kitty cats, my day is made.

ALSO!!!!!!! Rinne told Madara that he has to prove his worth before he can have Kohaku back - which for the record isn't even why Madara was there, he just showed up and that was the first thing Rinne said to him XD - and it very much had the vibe of "you broke my friend's heart and I'm not gonna let you do it again" so like. VERY GOOD SHIP CRUMBS FOR MEEEEEEEE. This was followed by Kohaku being like "I can do whatever I want" which, again, gay????? SO GOOD.

HiMERU very clearly did not like that Madara was there and wanted him to leave. Which make sense with how dismissive he was of Double Face during Ephemeral Festival, but I like that Rinne was not and instead acknowledged that Madara is an important part of Kohaku's life...he's just a shit who needs to make up for wronging Kohaku.

gaaaaaaaaaaaaay ♥

And another thing!!!!! It opened with Madara pondering on Nice Arneb Thunder and thinking that him + everything regarding 4piece and his quick acceptance into ES is really sketchy. Which is 1) accurate and 2) hahahaaa I fucking called it, I just knew Madara wouldn't trust this dude!!!!!!!! I said this during the first 4piece tour last year and tbh Madara is one of (the only????) character who hasn't been immediately taken in by Nice's cult of personality charisma. Kohaku also seemed concerned about him after Madara showed up to question Rinne about his past, so like......there's still time for my crack theory to win!!!!! Double Face could still take Nice Arneb Thunder out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry not sorry I'm just having a nice time uwu


I ground through the tour quite quickly so I could get Madara's 4* ♥
Honestly, the tour setlist has been really solid so far!!! I just finished up stop 10 and it's been less than 24 hours, which is a lot faster than I've played any recent tours tbh. idk I'm just having a nice time? It's nice to enjoy things ;w;

I mean also Madara is in the event so there's a lot of MaM and Double Face songs, so I am delighted by that ;D

( more enstars-related screencaps in here )

Oh, right. I do have one complaint about the event. Two complaints, I guess? But they're related, so I'll complain about them together. There's no event song and no MV outfits ;w; I know that tours don't usually have either of those, but the year end tours usually do. I guess because it's the prologue to the next chunk of main story it doesn't? BUT I'M STILL FUSSY.

Just another reason to be mad at Nice Arneb Thunder XD

Liz thinks that the outfits are gonna be the 10th anniversary MV outfits that everyone gets, which, like...okay. That's nice and all, but I wanted year end tour outfits ;w;

AT LEAST I HAVE ALTERED AND MY FOUR COPIES OF TSUMUGI


and here's a Lumos for sticking around for this whole longass post!

I should have known Aira would come through for me. I had four copies of his rate up 5* during last year's big end of the year tour, and he definitely showed up this time!!!!!!!!! I had enough dia left to do another 10 scout, and......


TWO MORE COPIES, one right after the other, holy shit I did not expect that!!!!!!
Also I'm up to 2 copies of Rei in engstars and I should be getting a second copy of Eichi today :D Gotta stay on top of it if I wanna max them out~

Also I'm recording a bunch of MVs with Aira's new outfit so I can make more icons of him ♥ I'm just delighted to have him ;w; And the JP game will be down for 4 hours before the event starts, so I gotta prepare!!!


Aira looks like he's the girlfriend of some important yakuza guy (Kohaku) who's supporting his dreams ♥

I was up until 5 in the fucking morning grinding out the last of the jp enstars event....and then woke up at, uh, 8:45 am. So. I'm sleep deprived but jazzed about idol boys? Which is, I think, my natural state these days XD

(Liz is working from home and I'm sitting across from them and I get to see them being so cute in their meeting it's precious)

ANYWAY. Let's do this in some sort of order...

I didn't end up going super hard in Puffy☆Bunny, probably due to me blowing all my fucking dia on Kohaku (worth it!!!!!), but I did get at least one copy of everyone. So now they can all be Easter-themed jackasses XD However, since I wasn't constantly grinding, I decided to reread the first ever enstars story I read: Black Snow (because I started playing in the middle of La Mort, and I'm still sad I didn't manage to get Ritsu).

Because it was the first thing going on when I started, I developed a fondness for basically everyone in La Mort...despite knowing next to nothing of what was going on. Now that it's been a few months and I've read...a lot.......I wanted to see if my first impressions were accurate~



KOHAKU IS A GOOD BOY WHO CARES ABOUT ALL UNITS HE'S IN, EVEN TEMPORARY

( not me screencapping a chunk of this story just to point at and say 'lookit them they're great' )

Okay, so now that all that's out of my system, I am also VERY EXCITED for Obbligato to start in engstars this weekend!!!!!!!!! It's starting in the middle of our road trip to Chicago, so I'm planning on reading it to the whole car- because everyone wants to hear an angsty anime audiobook, right? XD Liz does better character voices than me, but they also do most of the driving usually, sooooooo I'll have to do my best to capture everyone's tragic backstories OwO

I also redid my office in jp

There's still more I wanna get for it, but a lot of it is in the daily rotation category, so I have to wait :T I'm also sorely tempted to spend some of my precious memorial coins on the office outfits from fleeting spring night...
uhhhhhhhhh there was more but I've now rambled so much that I can't remember all of it :T