UPbeats!
[ More news about Sparklink Stars here and here!
My personal thoughts + warnings about coly inc. and AI usage here. Just be aware that this doesn’t necessarily mean they will use generative AI for the final illustrations. ]
I wanted to comment on the character designs as they come out (since that's a topic I'm really interested in), so that'll be its own series of posts.
PLEASE NOTE: I may not necessarily be super positive about the designs, so if you feel this will affect your enjoyment or excitement for the project, then I advise you not read.
UPbeats! is a fresh-faced 5 member idol group of best friends based in Dream Plaza. They are cheerful and will lift your spirits!
Neo Michel (Mickey Mouse)
CV: Shoya Chiba
“UPbeats!--and your smile, too--are what keep me going.”
His icon is the ☀️ (which may get confusing for Twsties since ☀️ is also used to refer to Kalim sometime)
The reliable leader and the center of UPbeats! Neo leads the group forward with a cheery, positive attitude.
Described to be a natural mood maker and a charmer who captivates everyone he talks to.
… Why does bro look like a combination of two Enstars characters???With his eyes being the same colors as Mickey’s torso, pants, and shoes??? And his name literally being “New Mickey” is INSANE work, such a silly name 😭
He looks so… generic? More Kirito SAO or literally any dark-haired Japanese protag-adjacent than inspired by Mickey Mouse. I wouldn’t even be able to tell he was supposed to be The Mouse without context and some of the accessories on his jacket. I wish the sneakers were at least yellow and they tried to incorporate the ears somehow (maybe as a hat/hood, headphones, hairstyle, sunglasses, or hair accessory).
As expected, he is… the genki leader. No shocker there.
Hugh Gardner (Goofy Goof)
CV: Fumiya Imai
“Come on, let’s try smiling. Something good is sure to happen if you do.”
His icon is 🧢
The big brother figure who watches over UPbeats! with a smile.
A mysterious presence who always manages to pull through almost any situation thanks to his innate and extraordinary luck.
Wow, uh… the Spalik designs continue to not impress. I think the colors on Hugh are really off—not just the lack of green hat or even orange shirt (Goofy’s signatures; I guess maybe everyone’s in red and black for more group unity), but also his SKIN?? Why does he look so grey washed??? Were they attempting to give him tan or slightly darker skin? 😭
The one element on him I like is how the hair bangs resemble the shape of Goofy’s ears. However, remove other indicators like the “gawrsh” pin, and I would have difficulties guessing what he is supposed to be.
“Hugh” makes me think of “hue” like a color. “Gardner” may be a reference to Goofy’s English VA, whose surname is “Farmer”. The name’s definitely more creative than NEO MICHEL.
I wonder why they decided to make him a big bro figure…? Is it cuz Goofy is canonically a father? But obviously he’s a bit young here so they had to interpret that as something else for this version?
Didi Cedric Bird/Bard (Donald Duck)
CV: Yuya Hirose
"My voice is too loud? Heh heh heh, I guess I’m just overflowing with energy!”
His icon is 🪽
A passionate guy who rallies and motivates the team.
He’s a competitive go-getter with a positive personality, tackling everything with his all/full effort.
This one is… slightly better than the ones that were revealed before him, but not by much. He still has the lack of iconic character colors, generic idol smile, and bland outfit. Is the little puff of hair atop his head supposed to resemble Donald’s beak…? Or is that just me overthinking it and giving the design too much credit?
Didi looks the most like his Disney counterpart, but that’s mostly because Donald has the iconic sailor suit and there’s a version of Donald where he is wearing a black variant. The pose is also less meh than the others; he does look more combative, even if his smile is still leaning bright and peppy. A detail I enjoy is that Didi doesn’t have very blatant accessories like Neo and Hugh do; he has more subtle patches that are in the shape of a duck’s webbed feet.
The name of this one is killing me 😭 “Didi”, like Donald’s initials, “DD”??? (“Didi” means “little brother” in Mandarin Chinese too, but I don’t think that’s the intended reference.) I think he has a middle name because Donald also had one as a reference to his sailor. And the surname being “Bird”/“Bard” (バード/bardo) is pretty on-the-nose.
I was expecting Donald to be a tsundere or have a rougher attitude… I guess being competitive is fine and all, but it seems everyone in this group is super positive. I don’t associate Donald with these traits at all; he’s lacking the pompous attitude and hotheadedness of the OG.
Raska Moncliff (Chip)
*Note that this name may not be the correct spelling, since JP isn’t always clear with r/l, c/k, ea/i, etc. differentiation
CV: Hiromu Mineta
“Well, I have no intentions of showing you anything unseemly/unsightly, so look keep your expectations high.”
His icon is 🍿
He’s the brain behind UPbeats!, meticulously planning their stage performances. A reliable anchor/pillar that supports the team.
He’s always bold and confident, often tellinf his teammates “Come on, you can lean/rely on me.”
THAT’S JUST SOME GUY… 🤡 The one thing I like on him is the acorn earring. That’s about it.
I don’t have much else to comment on here since I’m not familiar with Chip or Dale. However, a friend pointed out that Chip has a black nose and Dale has a red one, so this guy could have had a black tie to better indicate which brother he is.
Since I don’t know the OG character well, I have no clue what his name is supposed to be about. Maybe “raska” as in “rascal”?
Raska looks to be the reliable type, but Hugh is described as a “big bro” type, which I also assume would be reliable…? How will they be differentiated? Maybe Hugh is not as competent since Goofy’s silly?
Ranka Munk (Dale)
*Note that this name may not be the correct spelling, since JP isn’t always clear with r/l, c/k, ea/i, etc. differentiation
CV: Gen Sato
"When you're feeling sleepy... The best thing to do is just go nap without a care in the world.”
His icon is 😴
The youngest member of UPbeats!
He’s extremely laid-back.
Usually teams up with Raska to pull pranks; this is Ranka’s cherished way of bonding with others.
This one looks like he has Ace’s hair if it were styled differently (closest I could find is Luxe Couture) and paler + Cater’s lazy eyes. I noticed he has the same acorn earring as Raska, but that’s the only thing on the design I like. There’s unfortunately a consistent pattern of the Spalik characters just not representing the designs of their Disney counterparts that well…
A-Are they… not brothers???? (Update: apparently Chip and Dale aren’t brothers and I believed a lie my entire life 🤡) The Chip and Dale characters seem to have different surnames. Not sure where the first name comes from.
His + Didi’s personalities stand out the most to me. Maybe it’s because Didi’s competitiveness and Ranka’s penchant for sleeping and pranks can potentially lead to conflict www
General Thoughts
Those designs were ROUGH could have been… much better. My major issues can boil down to:
There’s not enough representation of the Disney characters’ colors; this was traded in for a group color scheme of black, red, and white.
It’s impossible to tell what Disney characters each boy is based on if you strip them of the accessories that blatantly have the character’s heads or key phrases on them. In fact, the accessories feel like they were slapped on with little thought as a shortcut to indicate what the inspirations were.
The poses and smiles are generically pleasant; there’s very little variation among the 5.
Not related to the physical design, but the personalties also read to me as “cookie cutter” idols. Could just be it seems that way because we haven’t seen them in action in a story yet.
They just feel like random ass anime characters doing a Disney-inspired clothing collab.
It’s possible to make designs that read closer to the Disney inspirations!! Just take a look at these character designs by @ug0nba; the Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Chip and Dale DNA comes off much stronger in the shapes, colors, poses, styles, and faces:
This can be done with other characters as well! Look at Fragaria Memories, in which the characters are knights inspired by different Sanrio mascots. I would not need to tell you which knight is for which Sanrio character, because you can already tell a lot by the various design elements on display.
I’ve also seen lots of fan works of the UPbeats! boys that alter the designs or make their expressions more lively. The fan artists really improve upon the originals.
I definitely think Yana’s designs have spoiled many other anime-style gacha game designs for Twst fans because it made me realize a lot of them can read as generic 😭 In Twst. you can easily tell what a character’s personality is like based on just the subtleties in their posing or the differences in how they choose to wear their school uniforms. These sensibilities also often extend to other outfits. Certain characters wear their designated event outfits in a more loose way, or there are additional items that help express their individuality.
This has become a topic of discussion in the JP fandom lately, too. For example, this one really blew up:
“I think the strength of Yana Toboso’s character designs lies in their vast knowledge (of fashion); she could explain the intent behind every single detail (on a character) if she wanted to. There’s nothing in her work that’s vague ‘lace for the sake of having lace’. It’s more like, ‘This specific type of lace appears here because it was fashionable among this specific social class in Britain during a particular century, so its placement/presence is entirely natural.’”
I think that, if more character designs were as intentional as Yana and her team’s are, we would not have as many bland designs in animanga and especially in the gacha game industry 🥲 It’s such a shame that Spalik’s designs are as boring as they are, because they will always be compared to Twst’s and seen as lesser 💦
The fact that these designs fall short also do not help the generative AI allegations, which will make potential fans further doubt the project. While the final product does appear to be done by actual artists, this doesn’t mean the designs given to the artists to render weren’t processed by or conjured up by a machine.
We haven’t seen the silhouettes and designs for the remaining groups + characters, so I’m wondering of there will be different artists or designers per group… Maybe it’s cope on my part, because I think it’d be such a shame to waste perfectly good ideas like Monsters Inc, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella boys for this project.
