Hello everyone! Today I'm continuing trying to explain the insane complexity of the Aikatsu System with Fitting Rooms! While it seems to be a lot harder explain these devices than Cards (read my last post for explanation on that!), let's start!
Mystery 2: Fitting Rooms
Let's start with everything we know about fitting rooms! Fitting rooms were present in both series, while the design of them drastically changed. While both design serve the same purpose, to dress up the idol using them, the iside and outside designs of the device are nowhere near the same. The fitting rooms the the original Aikatsu! are pink boxes with a crystal on top. The user inserts their cards, and the dorr opens, allowing them to enter. It was revealed in Episode 13 of the original series that these fitting rooms can read an idol's emotion, and they will not open to those who have forgotten the true meaning of being an idol. Once the door opens, the idol can run out onto a runway-like platform with pictures of the cards displayed on it. When they run through a card, the clothing item on that card is transferred onto the idol. After they have changed into their full coord, the pose, displaying it, and enter the stage. (More on stages in the next episode.) In order to activate a fitting room, the idol must have a top, bottom (or dress), and show card, as well as know the purpose of being an idol. IDs are not required to activate them, as shown by idols such as Mikuru , or idols who are auditioning to enter an academy. In addition to IDs, accesorry cards are not a requiremnt either.
The new deisgn of a fitting room is drastically different from the old one. The box concept is entirely gone, while the card platform is still there. The new fitting room is a hallway with a platform at the end of it. On the platform is a pedestal with card slots. The slots are the same, being one for tops, bottoms, shoes, accesorries, and IDs. Unike the original fitting room, these fitting rooms have not shown to have the abiity to read the user's emotions. While the cards are nesecarry for activation, we have not yet sen an idol use one without an ID. When an idol puts in their ID card, the hallway disappears, replaced by swirling pastels. The door appears, in the shape of a heart. Once an idol inserts all of the needed cards they can enter. There is the beginning of a runway, but it soon disappears and trasforms into trampoline-like steps that idol jumps through to reach their clothes. Once dressed up, the idol recieves blush and poses, then enters the stage.
Equivalents of the fitting room are seen, although unnamed, in PriPara and Pretty Rhythm . Though PriPara's equivalent was never given much exposure or tons of design, it is there. Pretty Rhythms's equivalent is huge and seems to be almost an entire room, though it appears huge. The are similar to Aikatsu!'s fitting room in one aspect, and that is their purpose, to dress up the idol. (Pretty Rhythm's seems to support my theory about how cards work.)
Okay, so how do they work? Well... What I've boiled it down to is a little creepy. And that is... Robotic arms. This is, in truth, the only plausible exlanation I could think of. That the idols are bing dressed by super-fast working robotic arms. Even though we obviously see no sort of similarity to this inside of the fitting rooms, the show is aimed at younger audiences (Even though adults do enjoy it!) and showing girls being dressed in this way would be sort of scary (at least it is to me). While I can provide no explanation for how they were able to read an idol's emotions in the original, Ichigo was very heavy at the time. So, the only explanation I can give for that 1 instance of "emotion reading" is that there's some sort of weight limit. (After all, that runway doesn't look all that stable...) As for how the door mystically appears in the new one, and the swirling pastels, I can only assume that the door was hidden behind a curtain, and that when the pastels appear, it's really curtains circling the platform combined with a drastic lighting change. (As for the posibilty of nudity... That I cant explain, unless they're being undressed by arms as well... Also I I'd rather not touch on it.)
Thanks for reading! Next time I'll be discussing how stages work! See you then!
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