You've been waiting for it and you've been asking us about it over and over again. Here they are! The final, grand winners of Petite Idol Studio - Summer Paradise Ed. 2018 🎉

Going through all the entries and rating them to make a decision was something really nice to do, but it was also a very time-consuming task, so setting that time aside was a bit of a challenge for our staff teams. That's why we're only sharing the results now.

The judges were staff members and contributors of all our websites and they made sure to follow the rules and guidelines to make a fair, unbiased judgement.

It was tough because all the entries were really amazing!

The final ranking is truly impressive and we're really happy and proud to have organized this contest and to see the community come together and create beautiful things.

We all hope you will love and support our lovely winners as much as we love them!

After stocking up on merch for so long, today's your time to brag! Show off your extensive collection and dedication to your favorite idols to win!

GeekyAngie from Maji Love

1400 points

• martianlightsaber (Maji Love staff): 「It's a heck of an impressive character shrine」
• LatidoReMe (Bandori Party + Sukutomo staff): 「The volume of their collection is impressive, but I find the assortment of items amazing too! The costumes, food, and other out-of-the-ordinary items makes this entry stand out amongst the rest. Also, I feel they did a pretty good job at making their collection photogenic, which is always a plus.」
• ekotts (Maji Love staff): 「It's such an impressive shrine」
• Kach (Sukutomo staff): 「Really showing great dedication, the room looks super nice to the eye」

→ See full entry

miilkyprincess from School Idol Tomodachi

800 points

• Memoly (Sukutomo staff): 「It's so shiny! I love the true dedication to Mari! The framed pic of Ainya & the awesome cosplay are great additions. 」
• db0 (Circles manager): 「Not one, but 2 ITA bags! So many figures and plushies! Now that's what I call true dedication」

→ See full entry

Honorable mentions

• 3rd with 500 points: Katelyn from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Kach (Sukutomo staff): 「really liking the addition of a corkboard as an avid charm collector」
  • Zehel (Sukutomo staff): 「Nice bulk collection of Riko and well arranged.」
• Also 3rd with 500 points: DMP12345 from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Aoi (Graphic designer, artist, Spanish translator): 「Can't I just go with ''everything''? The fact that they made a little story in every pic is amazing. 」
  • rdsatheen (Sukutomo staff, donator): 「Great story telling」
• Also 3rd with 500 points: violetR from Bandori Party
  • Zehel (Sukutomo staff): 「Lovely collection and the shelf to showcase them」
  • martianlightsaber (Maji Love staff): 「I love how well this is displayed」
• 4th with 400 points: murasakiwonder from Maji Love
  • ekotts (Maji Love staff): 「Ai stuff is so expensive, so kudos to you but also RIP your wallet」
  • Memoly (Sukutomo staff): 「I can really feel the dedication that they have for this character and his seiyuu. Even though there isn't as much merch for this franchise (compared to franchises like Love Live), this entry really makes the most of the merch that there is!」
• 5th with 300 points: ghostsguide from School Idol Tomodachi
  • violetR (Bandori Party staff): 「I love hanamaru too and the bag is super cute, has tons and tons of charms and even the rare cheerleader plushie!」
• Also 5th with 300 points: Klala from Cinderella Producers
  • db0 (Circles manager, developer): 「They made their own figure! That's so impressive! To me, that's worth a thousand bought figures~」
• 6th with 200 points: umicorn from School Idol Tomodachi
  • LatidoReMe (Bandori Party + Sukutomo staff): 「The amount of items they have for both Chika AND Riko is stunning, and I like that they were willing to make merch themselves too!」
• Also 6th with 200 points: Dinosaur from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Aoi (Graphic designer, artist, Spanish translator): 「They're super cute! Usually people tend to photograph their nesoberis or nendoroids, alter figures and charms when it comes to merch, and I usually don't see this type of merch. Amazing!」
• Also 6th with 200 points: tiffuwu from Bandori Party
  • violetR (Bandori Party staff): 「I love the dedication to get every piece of merch with their girl on it!」

Show off your photography skills with the best location, perfect lightning, best angle and overall beautiful photo!

AngelNya from School Idol Tomodachi

700 points

• Zehel (Sukutomo staff): 「Beautiful photos and Eli looks very cute」
• martianlightsaber (Maji Love staff): 「I like the composition and lighting of the first shot」
• Memoly (Sukutomo staff): 「The composition of these photos are lovely, and I love the change in expression of the Eli nendoroid 」

→ See full entry

caprisun from School Idol Tomodachi

600 points

• violetR (Bandori Party staff): 「Recreating the base of the figure is cute :D」
• Memoly (Sukutomo staff): 「This entry is so pretty! The setting is beautiful, and mini Hanamaru writing "Aqours" in the sand is too cute」

→ See full entry

Honorable mentions

• 3rd with 500 points: misstinymoon from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Zehel (Sukutomo staff): 「Nice storytelling and love Honoka's different expressions.」
  • rdsatheen (Sukutomo staff): 「Fun shots」
• Also 3rd with 500 points: Paily from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Aoi (Graphic designer, artist, Spanish translator): 「Those are some nice skills! I love how she's not just there but she's like in the sand」
  • Kach (Sukutomo staff): 「First pic looks very natural, good quality, and the figure fits very well with the scenery」
• Also 3rd with 500 points: Katelyn from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Aoi (Graphic designer, artist, Spanish translator): 「These photo skills are amazing! Riko looks amazing and that filter is just perfect!」
• 4th with 300 points: LatidoReMe from School Idol Tomodachi
  • martianlightsaber (Maji Love staff): 「The lighting on this is gorgeous and the mini surfboard is a nice touch」
• Also 4th with 300 points: Kyoko_Skittle from School Idol Tomodachi
• Also 4th with 300 points: ZoruaMaximum from School Idol Tomodachi
• 5th with 200 points: coolioreese from School Idol Tomodachi
• Also 5th with 200 points: Koi-Fish from School Idol Tomodachi
  • rdsatheen (Sukutomo staff): 「The second shot is a stunning photograph」
• Also 5th with 200 points: Klala from Cinderella Producers
  • violetR (Bandori Party staff): 「I love that they made their own figure!」
• Also 5th with 200 points: ninthgoddess from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Kach (Sukutomo staff): 「Really liking the light-rainbow effects, and the picture is just cute」

Stick to the summer theme, drive to the nearest beach, or wait for a sunny day to take your merch to the best summer party they've ever had! (Or sickest winter slopes, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere)

Lapsy143 from Bandori Party

1000 points

• martianlightsaber (Maji Love staff): 「Gotta hand it to 'em for going to a glacier in the middle of Northern hemisphere summer! ;'D」
• Aoi (Graphic designer, artist, Spanish translator): 「This is so winter-ish... And I love it. 」
• Kach (Sukutomo staff): 「Snow!」

→ See full entry

AngelNya from School Idol Tomodachi

600 points

• Zehel (Sukutomo staff): 「The background and the flowers remind me of summer and they fit the theme well」
• martianlightsaber (Maji Love staff): 「It really looks like a summertime ad」

→ See full entry

Note: AngelNya is also the 1st winner in "Picture Perfect Idol" category. As part of the rules, participants can only get one prize, so the 3rd winner will exceptionally get a prize instead.

Dinosaur from School Idol Tomodachi

500 points

• violetR (Bandori Party staff): 「Nice photography skills here!」
• Kach (Sukutomo staff): 「Really pretty location, sunny and nice sea/lake」

→ See full entry

Honorable mentions

• 4th with 400 points: caprisun from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Aoi (Graphic designer, artist, Spanish translator): 「I like how you can see the people in the background, that is a REAL beach!」
• 5th with 300 points: Kyoko_Skittle from School Idol Tomodachi
• Also 5th with 300 points: LatidoReMe from School Idol Tomodachi
  • rdsatheen (Sukutomo staff): 「Surfboard!」
• Also 5th with 300 points: Leelillen from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Memoly (Sukutomo staff): 「So cute! I love Chika's sun hat and the imagery of You & Chika sharing a milkshake on a hot summer day :)」
• Also 5th with 300 points: ZoruaMaximum from School Idol Tomodachi
  • violetR (Bandori Party staff): 「Good use of the base and a nice backdrop~」
• 6th with 200 points: Klala from Cinderella Producers
• Also 6th with 200 points: ninthgoddess from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Memoly (Sukutomo staff): 「I can feel the summer vibes radiate from Nozomi's smile~ (Also love the cute little watermelon slice)」
• Also 6th with 200 points: Paily from School Idol Tomodachi
  • Zehel (Sukutomo staff): 「Mari with the beach background reminds me of summer」
• Also 6th with 200 points: pupelarajaka from School Idol Tomodachi
  • rdsatheen (Sukutomo staff): 「Fun summer activities」

Some judges didn't leave any comment, but the total amount of points is correct!

We weren't the only judges for this contest! The entire community picked one winner per website via likes.

→ Check out Bandori Party's community-voted winner

→ Learn more about the rules and prizes of the contest "Petite Idol Studio - Summer Paradise Ed. 2018"

What did you think about this contest?

We want to hear from you! Depending on your opinion, we may or may not organize a similar contest this winter or next summer.

→ Take the survey!

WINNERS ANNOUNCED HERE

Let's Celebrate! 1 Year Anniversary & Activity Launch!

We're here to say thanks for the last year of support. The site and it's accompanying community have grown exponentially just within the last 2 months, mostly in part to the launch of the World-wide GBP Server! We want to celebrate with two new, very special contests.

"Change My Mind" Challenge! - Activity Launch Contest

For activities, it'll be a bit simpler. Write a compelling post about why your best girl means so much to you. Don't be skimpy! You love her after all, don't you? You can include images of your shrine, anything you've done to celebrate her birthday, or draw some fan art/share your fan art! If you use images that don't belong to you or aren't sourced from the game itself, please credit and use with their permission. The tag used for this contest will be "Change My Mind Challenge". Please, do not use negative words/present other girls as negative to promote your own girl, as it is against our guidelines and will be deleted and ineligible for competition.

The contest will run 2 weeks, until June 3rd.

There will be 3 prizes for this category!

• The most liked activity using the "Change My Mind Challenge" tag
• Staff Pick (Made Us Cry & Almost Changed Our Best Girl For You Award)
• Random Pick!

Prizes

For the winners of Staff Pick & Most Popular, you will win a custom commission from one of our lovely community artists, Hisoku & Grey! They just ask that you pick something for your art that is BanG Dream! Related, since you did write an essay about your best girl! The winner of random draw will get a twitter layout commission or other graphic design element of your choice from BrokenMaddnessu!

Kanae's Band Experiment -- 1st Anniversary Design Contest!

Our mascot, Kanae, has been with us for almost a year now as well. Our anniversary might have been in April, but she came into being that following summer. She represents the database and stores all the information here for you to see! However, she's missing some important information about the series she feels she can only get if she were to join a band... So, Kanae begins her quest as a temporary band member to collect new, percise information!

We don't have many guidelines, because we want to see what you come up with! All we ask is you design a live/band outfit for Kanae. It can be from the same vein as a currently existing band, or a whole new concept if you'd like. All we ask is don't submit Kanae wearing an already made outfit in the game. Her position in the band is undecided, so you can render her as a drummer, singer, keyboardist, or anything else! Also, be sure to read the terms & conditions for the contest when you submit.

PLEASE, do not share your entries on the site or off the site until results of the contest are posted. Thank you!

If you don't think you're the best artist, we will take your design idea and one of our staff artists will redraw your vision! You don't have to do a fully rendered art piece to win!

FAQ

What do you mean by a 'rendered image'?

This would mean you provided a full body image, fully colored/shaded and in high resolution. However, we realise not all great ideas come from people who can fully render their idea.

So, what should I include if I submit just a design?

You can be as detailed or not as you would like, however keep in mind overall design will be judged. So we'd like to see a hairstyle, hair/eye color, the outfit, any accessories she might have, and a color palette.

What Happens to my design if it wins?

This is covered in the Terms & Conditions you accept when you submit your design/image. Please read it on the submission form.

Where can I see a full reference of Kanae?

Click the button with "..." next to the globe, and view "About Us" to see Kanae in her full glory as drawn by @Nyarasho on twitter!

Anything else?

Please take all the liberties you want, but keep in mind that the character is a manager of the Bandori.Party live house, and should reflect that. If you have anymore questions, we would be happy to answer them below in the comments!

Prizes

The winning designer will get either a 10$ or 1500JPY gift card to Google Play/iTunes to purchase a Premium Box, as well as a special badge to commemorate their win! All Participants will also get a badge for their BanPa Profile.

Additionally, there will be a physical prize of your choice. We have 1 Yukina Shikishi, Hot-stamped with her signature from last year's Lawson Collab, or a collection of Motto! Garupa Life 4komas that was sold at the Garuparty event in January.

Submit your design!

Contest Ends June 17th

Come chat with us!

We will be hosting our 2nd live stream in just a few hours. This one will be a bit special because we are organizing it with our sister websites, School Idol Tomodachi and Cinderella Producers!

We have tons of things we want to talk about with you: big announcements from us and from the other websites, but we also want to hear from you!

Date/time: Monday PDT 7:30pm EDT 10:30pm

• Countdown → https://bit.ly/circles-stream-1

Location: https://www.twitch.tv/db0company

Please join us for this special community event! We can't wait to chat with you, hear your feedback and discuss together!

Ask questions now → https://app2.sli.do/event/gqzwzvlz

banner by violetR

-=- ENTRY FORM -=- DISCORD -=- MORE DETAILS + RANKINGS -=-

In conjunction with our launch giveaway, the staff team is pleased to announce our first community event - Bandori.Party Battle of the Bands! We apologize for the various delays we've had, they were caused by unexpected errors in our planning as well as the majority of our staff team being busy for a short while, and would like to thank the users who have had so much patience with us!

And now that we've finished the introduction, let us begin introducing the event~!

General Outline

The purpose of this event is to rack up points for a band of your choice by participating in moderated live rooms! After event sign-ups are over, we will announce which band you will be representing - please keep in mind that you may not get your first choice band, but we will do our best to accommodate everyone into either their first or second choices. In each live room, we will have at least one moderator (who will be representing a band as well), as well as one player from every other band. These players and moderator will then play a song (which will be 'voted' on by players, provided that they fit with the 'theme'), and will be judged based on performance, and will receive points based on their performance. Each live room will have a specific "theme" that will be rotated throughout the duration of our sessions - a specific list can be found below.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The majority of our communication will be done through Discord - be sure to have an account, and have joined our Discord group!

Specifics - Scoring System

The scoring system is based off a “Perfect Million” scoring system, where each player will be scored out of one million points based on their performance. More details and formula are available here. Players will also receive bonuses to their score based on their chosen difficulty, as indicated below:

• Easy → no bonus
• Normal → +20 000 to total score (2% of total possible score)
• Hard → +50 000 to total score (5% of total possible score)
• Expert → +90 000 to total score (9% of total possible score)

After each player has been scored, and difficulty bonuses applied, players will then be ranked against each other based on their total score, to receive points for their band. The number of points each player will receive are broken down as such:

• 1st Place → 10 pts.
• 2nd Place → 8 pts.
• 3rd Place → 7 pts.
• 4th Place → 6 pts.
• 5th Place → 5 pts.

Furthermore, there are additional bonuses/penalties! For those overachievers out there, there's a bonus for full comboing a song - 1 point on Easy or Normal, and 2 points on Hard or Expert! Also, should a player be exhausted (this will be determined by your number of Bads/Misses at the end of the song - healers will not help!) by the end of the song, there is a deduction of 3 points (not score!) to the number of earned points for that run. Please keep the above points in mind while selecting your difficulty for songs - be sure to play at the appropriate difficulty~

Specifics - Song Rotation

As explained above, the songs that are available to be played in rooms will be based on a specific 'theme'. There is a list of these available themes, which will be randomly picked before a room is hosted.

1. Poppin' Party! {Original Songs}
2. Roselia {Original Songs}
3. Pastel * Palettes {Original Songs}
4. Afterglow {Original Songs}
5. Hello Happy World! {Original Songs}
6. Poppin' Party! {Cover Songs}
7. Roselia {Cover Songs}
8. Pastel * Palettes {Cover Songs}
9. Afterglow {Cover Songs}
10. Hello Happy World! {Cover Songs}
11. Any Song!

These will be selected via a random number generator - however, moderators may repick a theme based on their own judgement, should they feel a certain theme is selected too often, or a certain theme is not being used often enough.

Specifics - Conduct During the Event

Of course, there's all the stuff about being nice to one another, having good sportsmanship, and other such things that needs to be mentioned in this section... But this section is not only for these matters, but also things that help make our lives easier!

1. Changing Your Nickname in the Discord Server - After the event begins, please include your Bandori username in your Discord nickname, if it isn't the same/already in there. You do not have to delete your existing username - for example, simply attach your Bandori username at the end of your username, like this: < Username > [ Bandori Username ].

2. Setting your In-Game tag to Support your Band - Be sure to show support for your band by setting your in-game 'tag' to support your band! This also helps with keep track of who's part of what team during lives, helping us organize players, thanks for doing this in advance~

3. Setting your Discord Status - If you are not available for play at any time during the sessions, for one reason or another, but don't want to be disconnected from Discord/the chat, be sure to set your status to Idle/Do Not Disturb! We will not select you to participate in a live should your status be set to Idle/Do Not Disturb. Being available when you're selected really helps with running the event smoothly, so this is an important note! Additionally, the reverse also applies - if you want to be selected, be sure to set your status to Online!

4. Setting a Team Leader - Please do NOT use a Perfect Lock leader for your teams! Because players will be judged based off their performance instead of their score, Perfect Lock skills will severely affect results. Yes, we get that you want to support your band by showing off the best copy of the card you have. However, we sincerely ask all users to refrain from using a Perfect Lock leader, thank you~

If you don't know how to perform any of the above things, simply comment below or contact us, and we will do our best to provide assistance!

Specifics - Exhaustion

Many users have been confused about our rules about Exhaustion during a live, as we cannot accurately measure whether or not somebody fails. Therefore, we have enacted a new system that will allow for more flexibility and accuracy when declaring whether somebody is "exhausted" or not.

Details

• At the end of the live, each player's Bads and Misses are tallied up, then added together to form a "penalty score".
• For the purposes of the penalty score, each Bad will count as half a point, and each Miss will count as one point.
• A player will be declared "Exhausted" if this penalty score exceeds a certain threshold.
• This threshold will be determined by 2% of the total notes in the song, always rounded up to the nearest half number.
• Even if a player is not actually exhausted at the end of a live, if their penalty score exceeds the threshold for that song, they will be declared "exhausted".
• Conversely, even if a player gets exhausted in-game, as long as their penalty score does not exceed the threshold, they will not be declared "exhausted" for the purposes of the event.
• Unlike the scoring system, this mechanic has not been tested by our moderators or staff team. This system may be changed during the event (especially regarding the % of notes that makes up the threshold value) should it be deemed 'inappropriate'.

Tentative Schedule

Bandori.Party Battle of the Bands will be held over a period of two "meta" periods (where events are not taking place). Here is a schedule for this next "meta" period (05.19 - 05.21). Once again, you do NOT need to participate in every session~!

Regular Sessions

These sessions will take place at the following times, provided that there are enough members from each band to do so. You may not join a room with a moderator from your own team - keep this in mind! (Moderators' teams are provided in brackets)

LatidoReMe (HaroHapi)

• Saturday / 05.20 / 6:00 UTC
• Sunday / 05.21 / 6:00 UTC

BAGU (Poppin')

• Friday / 05.19 / 18:00 UTC
• Friday / 05.19 / 20:00 UTC
• Saturday / 05.20 / 10:00 UTC

TiffyNinja (Roselia)

• Friday / 05.19 / 4:00 UTC
• Friday / 05.19 / 6:00 UTC
• Saturday / 05.20 / 4:00 UTC

aorteau (Aglo)

• Friday / 05.19 / 23:00 UTC
• Saturday / 05.20 / 22:00 UTC
• Sunday / 05.21 / 22:00 UTC

Nacko (Aglo)

• Friday / 05.19 / 22:00 UTC
• Saturday / 05.20 / 23:00 UTC
• Sunday / 05.21 / 23:00 UTC

Infinity (PasuPare)

• Friday / 05.19 / 20:00 - 21:00 UTC
• Saturday / 05.20 / 20:00 - 21:00 UTC

Wildcard Sessions

This is a new free session system. Staff will be available all day to fill in during times of high volume and traffic, as well as allow more flexibility within the schedule. They will run as normal games, but will happen sporadically.

Staff are also allowed to host a session at any time besides the times they assigned themselves. The only limitation is that they are required to have 4 members of competing bands online to do so.

violetR (PasuPare)

• Friday / 05.19 / 10:00 - 16:00 UTC
• Saturday / 05.20 / 10:00 - 16:00 UTC

Passionate (HaroHapi)

• Friday / 05.19 / ???
• Saturday / 05.20 / ???

natsushi (Poppin')

• Friday / 05.19 / ???
• Saturday / 05.20 / ???

jadii (Roselia)

• Friday / 05.19 / ???
• Saturday / 05.20 / ???

Prizes

And of course, we can't forget about prizes! The prizes for this event will be badges on our site, Bandori.Party! Each and every participant will receive a badge for participating, and the members of the winning band will receive an additional badge, be sure to show them off your friends!

Miscellaneous Rules + FAQ

Any further questions about the event that wasn't answered in this post, or any of the related documents? Feel free to PM us or comment your question below, and we'll answer it to the best of our ability!

Furthermore, should any additional rules need to be added (for the sake of organization, balancing, and whatnot), they will be posted in this section, so stay tuned!

Rules about Exhaustion - Read in Section "Specifics - Exhaustion"

Summary: If you miss a certain number of notes (2% of the total notes in the song), you will be declared "exhausted", regardless of whether you actually failed or not. Conversely, even if you are actually exhausted, as long as your misses don't exceed this number, you will not be declared "exhausted" for the sake of this event. In regards to this rule, two Bads will count as a Miss.

1. What is Garupa?

Garupa is the shortened form of BanG Dream!, taking the "Girls' Band Party" part of the name.

2. Does my centre have to be a member of my assigned band? Do all members have to be from my assigned band?

No, your centre/team can be made up of any member you wish. At the same time, there's nothing against it, so if you want to show off a shiny 4* from your favorite band, go for it! However, like stated above, no Perfect Lock leaders please!

3. Speaking of Perfect Lock leaders, can I use them anywhere else on my team?

Yes! Since their skills will NOT be activating during live shows, it is fine to have Perfect Lock characters on your team, provided they are not your leader.

-=- ENTRY FORM -=- DISCORD -=- MORE DETAILS + RANKINGS -=-

We look forward to seeing everyone at the event~!

edit on May 5th - addition of a FAQ, as well as tentative schedule

edit on May 12th - fixed Discord link + added rules about exhaustion

BANDORI.PARTY PRESENTS: DESIGN OUR MANAGER!

Have you noticed in the world of Bandori, there's all sorts of managers? We have the old lady in SPACE, our fearless leader Marina at CiRCLE... But we don't have one for Bandori.Party!

We don't have many guidelines, because we want to see what you come up with! All we ask is you design a live-house manager with Bandori.Party in mind! If you don't think you're the best artist, we will take your design idea and one of our staff artists will redraw your vision! You don't have to do a fully rendered art piece to win!

WINNER ANNOUNCED HERE!

FAQ

Why a Manager?

In the BanG Dream! Universe, its focused on girl bands operating in girl-band specialised live houses. As a database and "hub" for the game, we think having a manager mascot would be an obvious choice. Even though it seems like there aren't many men in this universe, we aren't closing that option for the contest. So just submit what you think will be the best fit for a Bandori.Party manager!

Okay, so, What's a Bandori.Party Live House?

Not being literal here, it's just the theme for this contest. We're pretending that the site is like a live-house, due to the parallels in the networking/hub like atmosphere, and asking for a 'manager'.

What do you mean by a 'rendered image'?

This would mean you provided a full body image, fully colored/shaded and in high resolution. However, we realise not all great ideas come from people who can fully render their idea.

So, what should I include if I submit just a design?

You can be as detailed or not as you would like, however keep in mind overall design will be judged. So we'd like to see a hairstyle, hair/eye color, the outfit, any accessories they might have, and a color palette.

What Happens to my design if it wins?

This is covered in the Terms & Conditions you accept when you submit your design/image. Please read it on the submission form.

Anything else?

Please take all the liberties you want, but keep in mind that the character is a manager of the Bandori.Party live house, and should reflect that. You can name them for an added touch if you'd like. If you have anymore questions, we would be happy to answer them below in the comments!

Contest Ended 08/01/17

ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE MASCOT CONTEST!

Hello everyone! It's been a grueling 3 months since we opened the mascot contest, and 1 since we closed it! I know most of you all are excited to finally see the winner of this contest, because I'm really excited to finally announce it myself!

We got 13 unique entrants and 16 designs to look through! I was really overwhelmed with the response for such a small contest. We want to stress to everyone how hard it was to pick from so many great applicants. For these reasons, we had a score card for our guest artist judges! The scoring system was based on Visual Appeal, Apparent Age of the Mascot, How Well Appearance linked to the Bandori.Party website, and memorability. Each category had a certain integer associated with the answers taken from the artists. Meanwhile, active staff members were asked to rank their top 3 and give reasons to their vote, and were added to artist score cards as bonus points. Additionally, names were removed from all entries to prevent a bias if there should have been any connection between the staff, artists, and art judges.

You can view all of the entries here!

Without further ado, our winner of BOTH Artists Choice & Staff Pick, and our mascot for Bandori.Party is...

ENTRY 4 - BY USER NEROMAO!!!

Design is not final, however. There will be modifications made by our official artist. The winner is aware!

The end of this contest means a new one will begin, because I think our Character Needs a name, don't you? You can submit names here until 15 September. This will be a for-fun event and final voting will occur after the names are screened by the staff for the top 4 names! You can submit as many names as you would like, just submit each name separately. Thank you!

We have some comments on the winning design presented by our staff and guest artist judges to go along with the announcement!

Our first judge is Amber Avara, a webcomic creator who's addicted to character design! Her comments were as follows with the announcement of the winner: "The winning design is very cute and definitely reads as an idol girl character! I'd personally work a little more on "branding"--parts of the other designs that I thought were really successful was the use of the yellow star, if that could be incorporated into this final design I think it'd be a perfect match! She's got an oldschool vibe that's nostalgic in the good way--reminds me of classical magical girls like Cardcaptor Sakura. Overall, a very cute character! Congratulations!"

Our second judge is D. Artemisatto, who collaborated with Natasha Allegri on the design for Vocaloid Ruby. She had this to say to the winning design: "A very lovely design, not too serious or too informal, nor does it feel too Idol-like by itself, but as a manager indeed. I feel it picked the webpage elements nicely, plus added some interesting accessories like the usb cords as hairpiece and tablet relating it to the digital nature of the game and the online community. As a character I can link it to the franchise both as a mascot and as a demographic, she doesn't feel too old or too young, but someone anyone can relate to."

Third, we have Jadii, a very prolific colorist and artist from Ireland who's had a following on dA for sometime. Her comments to the winner: "I think this design is the perfect middle ground between too simple and over designed. It has an excellent balanced colour scheme, structure and plenty of well thought out small details that bring the design together. There were many good designs I liked but I think this is a great representation/mascot for Bandori.Party!"

Our fourth and final judge will be the final designer and artist for the winning design, Brella! "Congratulations on the winner! It's my pleasure to be able to draw their character as the chosen Bandori Party mascot. She was one of my favorite designs of the bunch as she was a clear reflection of the website's purpose, and design aesthetic. I see the vibe of someone who's intelligent, responsible, enthusiastic, and youthful."

The staff comments on the design begin with mine. Personally, I just had a feeling with this one. Her color scheme of course was very indicative of the franchise and our very own site, and I love that she's basically a gijinka of the database! Ambi commented on the fact her character data was "android" over human, changing the game for her completely when it came to voting. The artists comments on the use of memory storage also really stood out, as well as the color scheme (again!) and the use of a dark brown/red over a complete black in the design.

Our final staff comment comes from Passionate, "Though I didn’t expect a non-human entry in this competition, it was a rather unique entry that definitely caught my attention! I personally have very little experience in judging mascots and such (this is my first time being a main judge, to be honest), but out of all the entries (which were all very appealing, by the way!), this was one of the most visually appealing. Not only was the colour scheme of this entry was fairly easy on the eyes, it also matched very well with colours of Bandori.Party, as well as the concept of Bandori.Party’s mission - a fan-made database for BanG Dream, made by fans, for fans! Starting from the unique concept, to an appealing colour scheme, and above all, reflecting the purpose of Bandori.Party, this entry was definitely one of the strongest, and was in no way undeserving of being the winner! Congratulations!"

The two other staff members involved in the voting declined to comment or couldn't be reached.

Thank you again for everyone's submissions. I really had no idea how this would turn out. I was getting kind of anxious that this event would be a total flop or we wouldn't be able to see it through. Thank you all for submitting, and thank you all for viewing and supporting Bandori.Party so far. Hope to see you again soon!