Ensemble Stars!

Ensemble Stars! is a gacha game. Currently there exists two versions of the game - Ensemble Stars!! Basic, an idol training game, and Ensemble Stars!! Music, a rhythm game. It is a spin-off of the game Ensemble Girls! which was released in 2012, and takes place in the same universe.
The original game centres on the idol school Yumenosaki Academy, in which the player character (Producer) helps several units, namely Trickstar, in reforming the school and helping the idols flourish. It is often referred to as ! era, as to differenciate it from the rebrand. 
The rebranded version of the game, Ensemble Stars!! (with two exclamation marks) takes place a year after and centres on Ensemble Square. It added two new units, ALKALOID and Crazy:B. It is often referred to as !! era.
During the games 9th anniversary, 6 new characters were added to the game under the audition program 4piece. These characters, as of writing, technically do not belong to any unit.
The series has an anime covering the original games main story and several other event stories, which was produced by David Production and aired from July 7 to December 22, 2019. A theatrical movie, 'Road to Show', was released March 4th, 2022. It also has multiple CGI anime adaptations produced by Dandelion Animation Studio covering the event stories Element, Crossroads and Checkmate. The game also has multiple stageplay and manga adaptations.
==Units==
Each unit is under an in-universe agency. There are currently 13 units in game.
As of the event story Last Mission, Double Face has been disbanded. 
STARMAKER PRODUCTION
fine
*Eichi Tenshouin (CV: Hikaru Midorikawa)
*Wataru Hibiki (CV: Takuya Eguchi)
*Tori Himemiya (CV: Ayumu Murase)
*Yuzuru Fushimi (CV: Koutaro Hashimoto)
Trickstar
*Hokuto Hikada (CV: Tomoaki Maeno) 
Previously voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya (Apr 28, 2015 – May 31, 2017)
*Subaru Akehoshi (CV: Tetsuya Kakihara)
*Makoto Yuuki (CV: Showtaro Morikubo)
*Mao Isara (CV: Yuki Kaji)
RYUSEITAI (流星隊)
*Chiaki Morisawa (CV: Yuichi Hose)
*Kanata Shinkai (CV: Koutaro Nishiyama)
*Tetora Nagumo (CV: Yoshiki Nakajima)
*Midori Takamine (CV: Takumi Watanabe)
*Sengoku Shinobu (CV: Anju Nitta)
ALKALOID
*Hiiro Amagi (CV: Gakuto Kajiwara)
*Aira Shiratori (CV: Kouhei Amasaki)
*Mayoi Ayase (CV: Chiharu Shigematsu)
*Tatsumi Kazehaya (CV: Masatomo Nakazawa)
COSMIC PRODUCTION
Eden
*Nagisa Ran (CV: Junichi Suwabe)
*Hiyori Tomoe (CV: Natsuki Hanae)
*Ibara Saegusa (CV: Ryota Osaka)
*Jun Sazanami (CV: Yuuma Uchida)
Valkyrie
*Shu Itsuki (CV: Hiroki Takahashi)
*Mika Kagehira (CV: Jun Oosuka)
2wink
* Hinata Aoi (CV: Soma Saito)
* Yuta Aoi (CV: Soma Saito)
Crazy:B
*Rinne Amagi (CV: Youhei Azakami)
*HiMERU (CV: Jun Kasama)
*Kohaku Oukawa (CV: Tasuku Kaito)
*Niki Shiina (CV: Tomohiro Yamaguchi)
Rhythm Link
UNDEAD
*Rei Sakuma (CV: Toshiki Masuda)
*Kaoru Hakaze (CV: Kei Hosogai)
*Koga Oogami (CV: Yuki Ono)
*Adonis Otogari (CV: Wataru Hatano)
Ra*bits
*Tomoya Mashiro (CV: Shunya Hiruma) 
*Nazuna Nito (CV: Yuki Yonai)
*Mitsuru Tenma (CV: Daiki Kobayashi)
Previously voiced by Junya Ikeda (Apr 28, 2015 – Nov 15, 2023)
*Hajime Shino (CV: Tomoya Kosaka)
AKATSUKI (紅月)
*Keito Hasumi (CV: Yuichiro Umehara)
*Kuro Kiryu (CV: Shinichiro Kamio)
*Souma Kanzaki (CV: Keisuke Kaminaga)
NEW DIMENSION
Knights
*Tsukasa Suou (CV: Reiou Tsuchida)
*Leo Tsukinaga (CV: Shintaro Asanuma)
*Izumi Sena (CV: Masami Ito)
*Ritsu Sakuma (CV: Daiki Yamashita)
*Arashi Narukami (CV: Ryo Kitamura) 
Previously voiced by Sosuke Soma (Apr 28, 2015 – Jul 17, 2015)
Switch
*Natsume Sakasaki (CV: Kenji Nojima)
*Tsumugi Aoba (CV: Kaito Ishikawa)
*Sora Harukawa (CV: Kazutomi Yamamoto)
MaM
* Madara Mikejima (CV: Kohsuke Toriumi)
Double Face
* Madara Mikejima
* Kohaku Oukawa
THUNDERBOLT CHALLENGE 4piece
*Esu Sagiri (CV: Shuhei Toyoshima)
*Ibuki Taki (CV: Chiaki Kobayashi)
*Kanna Natsu (CV: Yuki Sakakihara)
*Fuyume Hanamura (CV: Taichi Kusano)
*Raika Hojo (CV: Yuuki Terui)
*Nice Arneb Thunder/Yoshihide Sanda (CV: Ryota Suzuki)
Other characters
*Anzu (Protagonist and player character, can be renamed by the player.)
*Mademoiselle
*Hitsugi Kurone (CV: Takuma Nagatsuka) 
*NEGI
*Jin Sagami (CV: Tomoyasu Hishiba)
*Akiomi Kunugi (CV: Wataru Komada)
*Seiya Hidaka (CV: Shin-ichiro Miki)
*Kaname Tojo
*Gatekeeper (CV: Shunsuke Takeuchi)
*Godfather
*GFK
==Fandom==
The series has a large fandom, most notably in the country it originates. It has over 25k works on AO3, and over 111,000 works on Pixiv under the #あんスタ tag. Ensemble Stars is one of the most top earning mobage, especially among joseimuke mobage, earning millions, if not billions each month.
Many non-Japanese fans will translate stories themselves and distrubute them for others to read, as every ! era story is officially untranslated. While Music has an official English global release, and thus officially translated stories for !! era, it is two years behind the Japanese server, leading to active overseas fans translating them as they come out.
On August 17th 2021, The English Enstars Fandom Wiki, which housed a multitude of english translations, had to be purged due to a response from the developers regarding copyright infringement. As to avoid legal trouble, the wiki complied, which devastated many fans due to the percieved lack of easily accessible translations. All the story translations on the English Ensemble Stars wiki were purged by August 28th 2021.enstarsENG on Twitter - Ensemble Stars Wiki Takedown Request
Western fans of the series tend to endearingly refer to themselves as 'Enstarries', and it is a term even non-fans tend to use as means to refer to fans of the series. 
Genderswaps are often prevalent in the fanbase as drawings or in other fanworks, so much so that the term 'Femstars' has been coined to refer to them. It is a fairly dividing topic among the fanbase, but have started to become embraced again in recent years. The term can also refer to transfeminine headcanons, but typically tends to only refer to genderbends/feminisation as it is known for.
===Shipping ===
Practically all of the games ship are slash as a result of the almost all-male cast. However, there are several notable het pairings, typically including Anzu or Arashi Narukami, who is a canon trans girl. Notably, the two are a common femslash pairing.
Some english fans are against shipping 'original' (that is, ! era) third years with original first years. This is often accredited due to maturity gaps, and how characters in the series tend to treat characters that are younger than them, even if in reality the age gap is fairly minuscule. This is often noted as silly for these reasons by people who do ship 1st year/3rd year.
On AO3, the most popular pairing is Shu Itsuki/Mika Kagehira (ShuMika), at 1300+ works. On Pixiv, it is Rei Sakuma/Koga Oogami (ReiKoga), with 2300+ works.
==Fanworks==
===Fanart===
* by shikiimim
===Other===
* by fridayivy
==Links==
*Wikipedia: Ensemble Stars!
*The English Ensemble Stars Wiki on Fandom.com
**see their homepage for more resources in both JP and EN
*Ensemble Stars! works on AO3
*Ensemble Stars! on FFN
*#ensemble stars and #enstars tags on Tumblr
**#ensemble stars fanart and #enstars fanart on Tumblr
*#Ensemble Stars and #enstars tags on Pixiv
*Ensemble Stars Fanart event on Twitter
* writeup on r/HobbyDrama
==References==
Category:Ensemble Stars!