Mirai Kasuga

Mirai Kasuga is one of the new idols introduced in THE iDOLM@STER: Million Live! series. She can be considered the poster girl for the new idols, often on promotional material alongside Haruka Amami. She is voiced by Haruka Yamazaki.

Personality
A friendly, cheerful, and full of energy girl that never goes halfway with her idol work. Mirai is a popular girl who takes pride in her singing and idol status. As told in her Thank You! card, she keeps working to be an idol for the sake of her fans, letting their smiles cheer her on. She is determined to become a top idol and won't let others win against her.

Mirai is not a smart girl, as she tends to forget to do her homework, she didn't know who Oda Nobunaga (one of the most, if not the most famous warlord in war period Japan) was, and she always speaks before thinking. She also seems to be a terrible cook since her homemade special drink caused the Producer to make a really scary face. She is also a rather innocent girl who is embarrassed to be in a swimsuit and isn't sure whether her feelings for the Producer are love or just respect.

Background
Mirai's path to becoming an idol started when her friend took her to a live idol concert (in the manga, it is Shizuka Mogami who she met and the concert in question was 765PRO’s theater show, which Shizuka is also part of) and she became so impressed that she instantly quit her club to become an idol.

Etymology

 * The name Mirai means "future" (未来).
 * Mirai's surname Kasuga means "fragrance, fragrant" (春) (ka) and "sun, day" (日) (suka/suga).

Trivia

 * Due to her personality, frequent appearance, and her representative color in the game, Mirai is often considered the leading character of THE iDOLM@STER: Million Live! as Haruka Amami, Ai Hidaka, and Uzuki Shimamura are in their respective games. She is often put in a unit with Shizuka Mogami and Tsubasa Ibuki; together they are considered the "representative" girls of the game. Fans often call the three the "stoplight trio" due to their image colors.
 * While Mirai's surname means "spring days", it is created from two of the other leading characters, Haruka and Ai, in Japanese. The kanji surname of Mirai Kasuga is 春日, taken from the first name of Haruka 春香 and the last name of Ai 日高. The two kanjis, when put together, are pronounced Kasuga.
 * While Mirai's given name means "future", it is created directly from the name of the game THE iDOLM@STER: Million Live!. The name "Mirai" comes from the first syllable of "Million" or "ミリオン" (MIrion) and the first syllable of "Live", or "ライブ" (RAIbu).