Ensemble Stars 9th Anniversary Meltdown: 12-Year-Old Idol Candidates, a Kleptomaniac Who Returns Your Wallet Stuffed With Centipedes, and OG Characters Dragged Back to Trainee Status

A nine-year veteran idol gacha game decided to celebrate its anniversary by launching a full-blown survival show — and stuffing it with the most controversial new characters imaginable. The youngest is 12 years old. The "quirky" one pickpockets your wallet and returns it stuffed with centipedes. This isn't a shitpost — this is Ensemble Stars' (ES) official 9th anniversary content on the JP server.

The drama kicked off when the JP server announced a batch of new idol characters alongside a survival-show concept for the anniversary. The community erupted. The backlash centers on several fronts:

First, the resource squeeze. ES is fundamentally a husbando/waifu collector that monetizes by releasing different gacha cards for a fixed roster. With 49 characters already fighting over limited 5★ slots — many waiting over a year between high-rarity cards, often getting ugly art when they finally do — adding new characters means even longer droughts for existing favorites. This hits the game's core spenders (known as "厨力" or chef-power players who whale for their best girls/boys) right where it hurts.

Then there's the spectacular character design faceplant. Players distilled the five new members into brutally accurate labels: "the idiot, the femboy, the psycho, the autistic kid, and Deng Chao" (yes, the actor). Another version goes "femboy, idiot, rage disorder, autist, femboy." The youngest is set at just 12 years old — and while underage idols exist in Japanese entertainment, ES's own lore establishes the setting as an idol vocational high school where existing characters are all 16+. A 12-year-old doesn't fit the world's own rules.

But the real showstopper is the kleptomaniac character's personal story. According to player recaps: he gets hungry, tries to catch a cat/dog/pigeon to eat, accidentally tackles the player instead. The player kindly takes him to buy food — then realizes their wallet is gone. The kid confesses he swiped it when he bumped into you. Feeling guilty, he returns it — but the wallet is now suspiciously bulging. The player opens it to find it stuffed with centipedes, pill bugs, bee larvae, and other assorted insects. The writers' explanation? He's not malicious — he grew up in a [facility] (likely an orphanage) and simply lacks common sense.

One player's deadpan reaction summed up the community mood: "This is ES, and yet... I am profoundly shaken."

The third flashpoint is the survival show concept itself. Running an idol audition inside a gacha game — many players said they'd never seen anything like it. The official team even produced promotional videos for each new character, which players initially mistook for fan-made parodies. The truly unforgivable part: to make the audition work, the devs are pulling existing characters out of their established groups of several years and throwing them back into trainee status. As one commenter put it: "Nine real-world years as an idol, only to come back as a trainee."

Some players tried to be more measured. One pointed out that raging about age is a losing battle since Japanese entertainment has always had minors in auditions. Another noted the real anger is about new characters cannibalizing old characters' 5★ schedules — the character design complaints are just the most convenient weapon. Players also roasted the new art: "Tell me they're girls and I'd believe you" and "They look like someone shattered the old cast, grabbed random pieces, and mixed in Blue Lock and miHoYo aesthetics."

A key detail: ES is developed by hekk, the Japanese subsidiary of Chinese company Happy Elements (乐元素), while the CN server is operated by Happy Elements directly. The CN server's official Weibo comments are now a full-on warzone — players are literally pledging allegiance, saying "Happy Elements, if you delete the new unit, we'll crown you the legitimate hekk."

As for hekk's track record, one player offered a surgical takedown: "Their other otome game launched recently and went radio silent immediately — they birth it and abandon it. This was probably another idea they pulled out of a hat." Nine years of brand equity, potentially torched in one anniversary. Someone on the writing team needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror.