Well, at first I had my doubts about Sparklink Stars (the new game Disney Japan is developing)
I mean, the initial character designs they showed were... let's just say, in my opinion, they were lacking something.
But with the reveal of the other idol group (which is inspired by and based on Monsters.Inc) I think I'm going to give it a chance.
I definitely liked Shu Ayakashi design (which is based on Sulley), and not just because Sulley was one of my favorite characters when I was a child.
Just look ↓
Yeah, I'm still very 50/50 about Sparklink. I doubt I'm ever going to get as attached to it as Twist, the latter has simply too much stellar character interactions and though the writing is far from perfect, it's very compelling.
The main... band I guess(?) definitely read more as typical anime boys with vague Disney references in their color scheme. It's always going to be compared to Twist, which has set an extremely high bar for character designs that reference their inspiration while still being its own distinct thing. This is going to be amped up even more if Sparklink ever dips into the Disney Villains, which is why I think it's good they're leaning more on other characters and even ones from Pixar which even Twist has yet to touch.
Speaking of, I like these guys considerably more than the Mickey and friends based ones. Might just be personal bias since Monsters Inc is one of my favorite Pixar films, but they're all so much fun. Shu included!
He's probably going to be the tallest of the group since Sully's a big dude. And somebody's probably going to call him "kitty" as a cute nickname, or maybe a derisive one from the Randall guy.









