The premise behind Puchimasu revolves around the existence of creatures called "puchidols", small, stylized caricatures of those working at 765. These creatures have traits that are greatly exaggerated fandom interpretations of the characters and they only communicate through vocal tics that are reminiscent of their respective idol. For example, Afuu, Hoshii Miki's Puchidoru, has a love for sleep and onigiri and speaks only using "Nano" and "Hanii". Some of the Puchidols even have special powers that affect the flow of the episode. While they all possess some degree of human intelligence, they all act very much like pets.
One after another, antics revolving around these strange creatures and the idols occur before they are brought back to their new home with their respective 765PRO idol. These antics can happen in simple treks to and from work, to a global scale, in the tropics, jungle, and desert. The situations they get into range from simple everyday work, to the nonsensical, such as a worldwide hide and seek. This flow of events presents a contrast to those of the main series which focused mainly on idol work and live insert song numbers.
The strength of this spin-off, much like the main series, lies in the character interactions among the idols and with the puchidols. However, the interactions are all light-hearted comedic and comedic in nature, and the characters do not carry emotional baggage or doubts as they had in the main series. In fact, many of the characters have their "fandom" traits emphasized as well, akin to the Puchidols. The biggest change in character is seen in the the Producer, who has been relegated to a much more comedic relief role, becoming more of an unreliable pervert and his head replaced with the ubiquitous yellow producer P. As Producer now has less of a central role, this allows for the idols to interact with each other more independently of him.
In the aesthetics department, the style and sounds are simplistic and vibrant, an appropriate match with the light-hearted atmosphere of Puchimas. The animation is also very simple and limited, so there won't be any song and dance routines like in the anime adaptation. The end credits do offer a few new songs sung by different members of the iDOLM@STER cast, with similar light-heartedness.
With all of these factors considered, it can be concluded that this spin-off places great emphasis on the happy and fun parts of the iDOLM@STER series. If you're looking for more fun antics with the 765PRO idols, then this spin-off is recommended for you. This show might not be for every iDOLM@STER fan though. If you would enjoy more of the character development or song and dance aspects of the iDOLM@STER series, then this spin-off might not be the one for you. Puchimas is a series that offers character interactions that are essentially fanservice and not much more, but that's a perfect match for a fan looking for more iDOLM@STER.
