New to Paradox Live?

This crash course assumes that you are starting from zero, which is, admittedly, probably pretty unlikely if you're on this site; if you have any knowledge coming in, some of this may come across as redundant!

Paradox Live is a Japanese multimedia franchise, created by GCrest and distributed by Avex Records, featuring many popular seiyuu and utaite among its cast. The big question people often ask is: is it an anime? Is it a mobile game?
The answer is that is none of the above; it is a multimedia franchise (often called a "media mix" in Japanese), with the core content consisting of audio dramas and music. Though there is an anime (with which I have multiple dealbreaking problems) and a mobile game has been announced, the core of the franchise is audio dramas.

Though I had no hand in it, there is a decent introductory YouTube video for English speakers over here that explains much of what I ramble about here, if you find that format easier to follow!

A crash course

The music is hip hop (in a very "animusic" way-- don't expect anything too authentic), with various groups having different styles within the overarching umbrella; for example, one group's music tends to resemble trap, whereas another's is influenced by east coast jazz rap, one blends traditional Japanese music and Chicano rap, and yet another is 2000's style rap-rock. The series's special narrative gimmick is that the characters use special seemingly-supernatural metal accessories to create elaborate illusions on stage, and these accessories and their side effects turn out to be central to the overarching story.

The core part of canon is CDs consisting of songs and audio dramas-- basically, radio plays.
The majority of these CDs are "battle rounds", where two teams are going to be going up against each other in a song competition, where every round has a given theme. The CDs then consist of the songs the groups put forth for that round, and audio dramas following the characters in the time period before the battle round. You'll be able to tell which are the battle rounds because they usually have "Stage Battle" in the title, but failing that, they'll always have the theme of the round in all capital English letters and quotation marks ("DESIRE", "JUSTICE", "SHOWDOWN", "TRUST", "REVOLUTION", etc.)

The first major arc of the story (which you may hear referred to as "part 1" or "season 1") consisted of a round robin competition between four groups: BAE, The Cat's Whiskers, cozmez, and Akan Yatsura. There was one introductory CD, six battle rounds, one mid-round interstitial taking place between two rounds, a finale, and a collection of shuffle team tracks following the finale, for a total of 11 CDs.

The second major arc, -Road to Legend-, introduced four new groups -- VISTY, AMPRULE, 1Nm8, and GokuLuck -- in addition to the four previous groups all returning. This round took the form of a single elimiation bracket consisting of two double-length CDs, with a comeback round for the losers of the first round leading to a three-way battle final round, and a finale that followed, for a total of eight CDs (the equivalent of 10 CDs).

The third major arc, BATTLE OF UNITY, is a team battle, with the eight teams divided into two competing units; slated to take place over an opening show releasing in late 2024, and four CD releases scheduled for 2025. A bonus shuffle team project, Seasonal Show, is also slated for 2025. Details to be added.

While the main conceit of the plot is ostensibly the competitions, the actual draw of the franchise is the character interactions; in my opinion, you'll get the most out of it if you view it less as a tightly-paced plot and more as an ensemble piece with plot threads interwoven through it.

Where do I start?

I have a page right here to help people know where to start! But the extremely short version is: open the "Drama Tracks" page in the sidebar, start at the start, and read every one in order.

Voting

The trajectory of the story is partially dictated by fans voting on who they want the winner of each battle round to be. This is accomplished via Dope Points, which are gained through purchasing CDs and other social media action. More details about this are on the page for Paradox Tribe, the official fan app.
Fans can vote on who they want to win a given round for a period of ~about two weeks after the release of a CD battle round CD. Most fans only vote for their favorite group, and might hoard points for a very long time waiting for their team to be up at bat.
Dope Points have also been used to determine aspects of shuffle teams instead of the main battle rounds.

Social Media

While characters having social media accounts is not unheard of, Paradox Live's entire cast have twitter accounts that often provide hilarious and entertaining glimpses into the character's lives, in addition to periodically doing in-character reply events on the fan app. More information about this is on the Social Media page.
The cast's social media antics are a source of a great many jokes within the fandom.

Print Media

Occasionally, as is common for these kinds of franchises, supplementary material will come out in magazines or in special supplementary information books known as "fanbooks". (Despite what we may think when we hear the term in English, these are wholly official; they are more "books for fans" rather than "books by fans".) These contain expanded profiles and often additional material, such as floor plans of the characters' homes, daily schedules, mini-manga, and short stories.

Additionally, in 2021, a light novel, Hidden Track "MEMORY" was released. This effectively serves as a backstory novel for the first four units. I consider it essential canon, to be read after Part 1, and luckily, you can find it translated under "Novels & Short Stories"!

Adaptations and Other Media

In addition to the CDs and audio drama series, there are multiple adaptations:

Stage Battle "COMIC" is a manga adaptation released serially on ZeroSum Comics Online
Paradox Live On Stage is a series of stageplays adapting the story
Paradox Live The Animation is a 12-episode anime adaptation that began airing in October 2023. (I do not recommend the anime for newcomers; you will be extremely lost if you watch it and try to skip ahead in the drama tracks, and many important character motivations are drastically changed, often insultingly.)

All of these are more or less adaptations of the same content. A mobile game has been announced, but we do not at yet know anything about it.

Ever since 2021, there has been a yearly seiyuu concert, referred to as a Dope Show, where the seiyuu perform the songs from the franchise and we usually get a big announcement or two.