People are really cherrypicking and fixating on somethings without realizing the context which leads me to believe that not many people read through the OP. There really isn't anything that you can call pandering in this game unless you really want to call every instance of showing skin pandering.
It's pretty faithful to the trajectory of how a lot of people end up in show business and they've been pretty inoffensive with it.
The concept of idol is pretty broad because at it's core it's really just a person who's there, a face, to represent fans through a variety of activities, whether it is singing, appearing on bangumi, wide shows, radio shows, comedy, etc. You have a character and flavor for each of them, some not as developed as others, but they are there and it's executed tastefully.
Some, not all idols go through gravure, a lot of people in the entertainment use their idol career or gravure career to jumpstart a more successful career in acting or fashion.
Quite a few AKB members graduated and became actors, Shinozaki Ai moved past gravure and is breaking out a singing career a very talented one too, Mizushima Hiro is a prolific actor and is also widely known for his work on tokusatsu as well as male gravure; Mizushima had a writing career too and came back to acting. I guess the closest American contemporary would be say Miley Cyrus or Ice Cube or Channing Tatum or quite a few others. It's the Japanese entertainment industry but there are parallels to Hollywood and the American and international one as well, let's not kid ourselves. But again people will still stay fixated on a single aspect without looking at the big picture really.
You can find character parallels to quite a few characters to real life as well since some characters are parodies to their real life contemporaries.
It's not like in this game you spend a ton of time hosting akushukai or dealing with creepy fans or having to do questionable things. It's tamer than how Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku approaches the aspect in their 5th game.
Even if you're not keen on the aspects of it, Itsuki, the main protagonist, is the most vanilla and grounded one anyway. He wasn't even keen in entering the entertainment industry and was basically sucked into it. He's there to act as an anchor and contrast from the other colorful personalities in the game since he's the one who doesn't necessarily want it as much as the other with his limited modeling experience.
What I kind of would have liked is maybe more of a focus on a scandal aspect to go alongside with the game. Reason being is that I really like AKB49 manga's take on it since it's ending right now and their take on the scandal and the aspects of idols is pretty good and inoffensive for the most part. I'm pretty sad that AKB49 is ending and I think it's a recommended read for anyone interested here.
Anyways I'm going to do my review and thoughts write up now and start editing those in.
There's legitimate commentary, then there's omgthisgame sucks, idols. lawl. (95% of GAF right now)
