Pop culture references in this game

[nocturnal YL]

I've been wondering which parts of this games are references. Not being well-versed in non-game pop culture, I can only find three thus far:

- Mamori's third side story is called "チャイルドモンスター金銀" (I don't know what it's called in the overseas versions), which is an obvious references to Pokémon. The actual story has nothing to do with Pokémon, though.

- In the same side story, there is a singing contest called 金銀歌合戦, an obvious referce to the NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen.

- At first glance, UTA-LOID TIKi looks like a reference to virtual idols in general, but now I think she's a reference to specifically Hatsune Miku. Her first side story is called "ちっきちきにしてあげる", an obvious play of an early Miku song "みくみくにしてあげる♪". Another (weaker) link is that the song Itsuki wrote for her in the third side story, 幻じゃない世界, is about Tiki herself, like how early Miku songs tend to be about Miku herself, although this isn't unique to her and other VOCALOID idols have songs about themselves.

I'm under the impression that I missed a lot of other references. Do you guys know of anything else...?

Edited August 28, 2016 by nocturnal YL

[eclipse]

Kuen Tarachino really reminds me of Quentin Tarantino.

Edited August 28, 2016 by eggclipse

[Azure Sen]

- At first glance, UTA-LOID TIKi looks like a reference to virtual idols in general, but now I think she's a reference to specifically Hatsune Miku. Her first side story is called "ちっきちきにしてあげる", an obvious play of an early Miku song "みくみくにしてあげる♪". Another (weaker) link is that the song Itsuki wrote for her in the third side story, 幻じゃない世界, is about Tiki herself, like how early Miku songs tend to be about Miku herself, although this isn't unique to her and other VOCALOID idols have songs about themselves.

I'm pretty sure UTALOID is supposed to refer to the two biggest vocal synthesizer programs, UTAU and VOCALOID, which is why they didn't change it for the Western release.

[Avk]

I'm also not very knowledgeable about all these things, but I've seen mentioned in another forum :

From Barry's profile, he was part of a group named TERADETH, which is a reference to Megadeth.

Tsubasa is posing for a magazine called Nanno in our localized version if I remember correctly, is a reference to Non-no, so the localization team made the effort to make it a reference too.

The game is apparently filled with references of the sort, but I doubt many people are able to recognize most of them (me included), since it's more oriented toward Japan. Nonetheless, it's still very nice to see that the developers had fun putting these everywhere in the game (even some less "pop-culture" ones, like these two).

[nocturnal YL]

Interesting. Seeing how Nintendo localization works (NOA asks developers to actually implement the changes), it's possible that someone in Japan came up with that magazine reference.

Got a few more (not necessarily entertainment-related):

- UTA-LOID TIKi's TV ad calls her 電子の妖精, a possibe reference to Miku being known as 電子の歌姫 (Electronic Diva).

- The vending machine drink that boosts the luck of all members (available only in the Fortuna office) is called マッスルドリンコEX, which could be a reference to Dydo Drinco.

​- The in-game description of the department store (東母デパート) rooftop says that it's at the west exit of Ikebukuro station, whereas the east exit has 西母. This is a reference to the real-life Seibu Department Store (the original branch, anyway) and Tobu Department Store. (Search "Seibu" in this TVTropes page.)

Also, I'm aware of the other "generic" brand names in the game being references to real-life brands, most blatantly the fast food stores Ushinoya (=Yoshinoya) and Donadona (probably McDonald's).

Edited September 1, 2016 by nocturnal YL

[nocturnal YL]

Well, I found my answer here.

​Link to Kawaki Chatei

This page details a huge amount of references to mythology, pop culture, Fire Emblem and ATLUS. I missed most of them (even a few FE references).