Aikatsu! is a collectible card game/music game hybrid that is immensely popular right now with elementary school girls, as well as men experiencing quarter-life crisis. The game isn't particularly hard to figure out if you have basic Japanese knowledge (it is intended for kids, after all) but here's a quick and dirty guide to getting started to playing Aikatsu! for English-speakers.

While it is possible to play Aikatsu! without an IC card, the game becomes quite limited if you do so, so this guide focuses on IC card play.

Buying a Data Carddass IC Card

Aikatsu is a game built atop Bandai's Data Carddass (DCD) platform. To save your data, you will need a DCD IC card. You will need to track down an arcade or department store with a dispenser for DCD IC cards. Unlike other game-related IC cards, many locations with Aikatsu! cabinets do not carry DCD IC cards. The easiest to find are the generic blue IC cards (which cost about 500 yen), but there are also Starlight Gakuen and Dream Academy-themed passes included with Aikatsu starter sets, which also include a complete coord (outfit) for you to use in-game. (You can also find the cards alone at the TV Tokyo shop at Tokyo Station's Character Street for 600 yen.) It does not matter whether your IC card is Aikatsu-themed or not; both will work.

Data Carddass IC cards have a limited number of uses. In most cases, this will be 400 plays, but check the front of your IC card to make sure it is, as trial IC cards (which may be bundled with Aikatsu! goods) are limited to 100 plays. The number of remaining uses is displayed in-game when your data is loaded. It is possible to transfer your save data from one card to another once you get close to using all the saves on the card.

The card number on the back of the card can be used to register for Aikatsu!'s My Room service, a profile page of sorts that is visible on the Web. That isn't going to be covered in this guide.

Getting Started

Start by inserting a coin into the cabinet. Unlike many other music games, putting your card on the IC reader before being told to do so will take you to card administration mode where save data can be created or moved to another card, so please wait until the game tells you to do so.

If this is your first time playing, you will be lectured by Principal Orihime about becoming a Starlight Gakuen student, and will then have to enter your name, create your personal character, select your age and your birthday. If you're migrating data from a previous version of Aikatsu!, you will be given bonus items determined by your previous rank to compensate for your rank being reset.

The main menu will eventually appear and present you with three options.

ひとりであそぶ (Play Alone) is probably the option you're most interested in. Selecting this will:

  • Dispense an Aikatsu! card.
  • Present the opportunity to buy up to two more for 100 yen a pop.
  • Prompt you to put your IC card on the reader.
  • Display your profile.
  • If you passed an audition in your previous game, a short scene depicting your character at work will appear telling you how things went.
  • Display the audition select screen.

ふたりであそぶ (Play with a Friend) is the multiplayer variant of the above option. Selecting this will ask you to insert another coin for the second player, dispense one card per player, and then move forward through the usual flow. Both cooperative and competitive modes are available.

カードをかう (Buy Cards) is an option that dispenses a card and offers the opportunity to buy up to four more cards for 100 yen each. I wouldn't recommend selecting this option unless you're grinding to get a specific card as quickly as possible, as you're effectively paying the same as you would for a regular credit and not getting any gameplay out of it. (Though, every time you buy five cards through this mode, you get a bonus in-game item.)

My Chara

 

The My Chara (profile) screen exposes the following information to you:

  • なまえ: Your name.
  • リボン: Ribbon you may have obtained through in-game events.
  • ランク: Your rank. This resets every "series", which appears to be a yearly occurence.
  • 次のランクまで: Remaining experience points until the next rank.
  • アンクアップボーナス: Bonus item you will obtain once you rank up.
  • ファン数: Your number of fans.
  • のこりセーブ回数: Your remaining amount of saves on this IC card.

You can use the yellow and green buttons to page through the チーム (team) and 星座 (constellation) pages:

  • チーム: Which idols have you unlocked in-game and how well do you get along with them?
  • 星座: Which constellation parts do you have available?

I believe an extra 友達 (friends) page is added once you've played with another person but I have no photo of this, so I might be misremembering.

Audition Select

 

The audition select screen offers a variety of game modes and events for you to choose from:

  • メインオーディション (Main Audition): This is the primary story mode where your custom idol joins Starlight Gakuen and is guided along by the idols you may know from the TV show.
  • アイドルにチャレンジ (Challenge an Idol): Idol challenges are limited time events that are secondary to main events (see below). These will last a few weeks as opposed to a month or two, and often have very little if not no connection with anything that has happened in the anime.
  • NEWアイドル (New Idols): This mode lets you challenge other idols in order to unlock them as playable characters you can use in auditions.
  • Main Events: Main events are generally a month or two long and parallel whichever events are taking place in the anime. These will generally either have story sequences to carry the narrative of the event, or will simply be tournament-based. Events in this photo are: 星座カップ (Constellation Cup), バレンタインカップ (Valentine Cup), トレンドカップ (Trend Cup).
  • フリーオーディション (Free Audition): This is the closest Aikatsu! has to a normal song select screen. Split across these three categories, you can choose the song of your choice, and then choose which difficulty you wish to play. Not all difficulties are available from the start; you will need to play through a song's lower difficulties before the higher ones become available to play.
 

Character Select/Card Scan

Upon choosing your song, you'll be taken to the character select screen. At the time this was written, starting with a fresh card will let you choose from your personal character, Ichigo, Aoi, Ran, Seira, or Kii. As you unlock more characters via the New Idols mode, character select will eventually split into two screens, with Starlight Gakuen on one side, and Dream Academy on the other. If the audition you chose was a team audition, you may have to choose team members. (In certain cases, team members will already have been chosen for you.)

You will then be taken to the card scan screen.

 

Before you scan anything, look at the upper left corner. The upper left corner will indicate which card type or brand (or both) will give you bonuses for this event, so if you have any cards of that type, use them. In this case, using Pop type cards (see the screenshot below) and/or Happy Rainbow brand cards will give you bonus points.

To scan a card, insert them so that the back side of the card is facing down and that the barcode (not the QR code) is facing the display. If you do not have cards for each class of card (tops/bottoms/shoes), press the red button to continue.

 

After this, you will be asked to scan an accessory card if you have one. Accessory cards are relatively rare to obtain through regular play, but they are more than often included with Aikatsu! goods.

In-Game / Post-Game

 

Once in the actual music game portion of the game, you shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out what is going on. Depending on the difficulty you're playing on and on the track you've chosen, one of two patterns may occur:

  • The most common is the one visible in the photo above: notes flowing towards a hitbox, similar to Taiko no Tatsujin. The hitbox may change places after an appeal.
  • On harder tracks, the notes will stay in place and the hitbox will move along a track.

Aikatsu!'s lifebar doesn't behave like many music gamers expect. The lifebar represents how close you are to clearing a song; however, to clear a song, you must reach a target score (which isn't displayed anywhere). The lifebar will always show you your score relative to that target score. This may be frightening at first, because even having a long combo might have a negligible effect on your lifebar if the target score is especially high.

That's because in Aikatsu!, the bulk of your score will come from appeals, which are special moves that are determined by the combination of cards you have scanned, as well as your ability to time button presses during the activation sequence. Once you reach the harder difficulty levels, you may very well full combo a track but not have powerful enough appeals to clear it, and fail.

 

Once you're done playing your song, you will receive your judgment: either 合格 (passed) or 不合格 (didn't pass).

When and Where to Play Aikatsu!

Because Aikatsu! is at its core a kids' game, more likely than not, you will be judged by kids, teenagers, or other adults (in other words, literally everyone) who see you playing. You may wish to follow these guidelines to reduce the shame you are feeling by playing Aikatsu!:

  • If possible, go to Akihabara, because everyone will be too busy reorganizing their card binders to judge you. If you're the social type, the GiGO to the right of Lammtarra is particularly buzzing with activity; if you want a quieter spot, consider Tokyo Leisureland (not the one in the Don Quijote).
  • Play while adults are at work and kids are at school. The optimal time is right when the arcade opens, as it will likely be empty.
  • If you absolutely feel like you must play Aikatsu! while kids are coming back from school, you may wish to choose an arcade at the mid-point between two train stations that are reasonably far apart to reduce the likeliness of students being there.
  • Make good use of curfew times at your local arcade. Kids younger than 16 aren't allowed at arcades past 6pm and kids aren't allowed at arcades at all past 8pm, so that's a good time to get some Aikatsu! in without meddling kids in your way.

That said, please follow basic etiquette:

  • Don't smoke at the Aikatsu! cabinets.
  • If someone is waiting behind you, let them have their turn.
  • If you suddenly find yourself surrounded by kids, retreat from the area immediately and let them have their fun.

Miscellaneous Tips and Tricks

  • Following the anime is a good way to keep up on what's happening in-game, as big changes in the anime typically occur at the same time as a game update.
  • Lots can be done around card organization. Come up with optimal outfits for each card type and/or brand, as you don't want to be thinking too much when the clock is ticking on the card scan screen.
  • Leave your duplicate cards behind at home. Perhaps consider selling them off at second-hand stores like Book Off or at a specialized trading card shop and putting the money towards cards you enjoy from previous runs or towards more Aikatsu! credits.
  • Frequently check the Challenge an Idol category, as completing those events may give you the chance to play as characters that are not unlockable regularly (for example, Masquerade).
  • Follow the DCD Aikatsu! official account on Twitter.
  • 冴草きい