Soleil

"Soleil☆Rising!"

- Soleil's group catchphrase, first heard as the title of Episode 87

Soleil (ソレイユ) is an idol unit made up of three students from Starlight School, created to ensure the academy's success and existence. The group consists of Ichigo Hoshimiya and Aoi Kiriya, and the two are later joined by Ran Shibuki after she leaves Tristar. Ichigo and Aoi came up with the name of the unit, Soleil, (meaning sun in French) and was made to counterpart the moon thematic of Mizuki Kanzaki's idol group, Tristar. A duel tournament between the two units was held by Data Carddass Aikatsu! from June 21st to July 28th, 2013, and was won by Tristar.

For the Academy's Existence
With Tristar's debut live over, Orihime and Johnny discussed about Starlight School's existence, with Ichigo and Aoi's photos shown in Orihime's device. Later, Orihime reveals a new unit consisting of Ichigo and Aoi to be formed. This shocked the entire academy, including Ran, who has just joined Tristar. As Ichigo and Aoi were many times congratulated with "the two of you", they felt down, but they also kept cheering Ran on, and they even revealed the name of their unit, Soleil to Ran first. As Ran continued to make mistakes during Tristar's rehearsals, Mizuki realized her mistake of separating Ran from Ichigo and Aoi and dismissed Ran from Tristar. Ran then barges in on Soleil's pre-debut interview and announces that she left Tristar with the intention of joining Soleil. With the three of them now as a unit, they announced their unit name to the public.

Tristar and Soleil's Special Live
Ichigo was designated as Soleil's leader, and on the same day, Mizuki found a replacement for Ran in Yurika Tōdō. Then, as Yurika is announced as Tristar's third member, Mizuki announces "Tristar and Soleil's Special Live", after which Johnny accepts the decision to make Ichigo leader of the group, having been doubtful of Ichigo's leadership capabilities when he found out about it initially.

STAR☆ANIS
As Soleil completed their mission of performing a "full house", Orihime announced to both Soleil, Tristar, and later Powapowa-Puririn that they will be merged into the eight-member unit STAR☆ANIS for a summer tour. After the STAR☆ANIS summer tour, Soleil continued their activities, performing in two lives before the Starlight Queen Cup - one live being witnessed by the members of the band More Than True, and the other in which the girls learned how to convey happy emotions through their smiles (leading to a slight change in Diamond Happy's choreography). After Ichigo's departure to America, the unit was put on hiatus.

Soleil VS WM
In Episode 87, Soleil was revived after being challenged to a duel by WM. The challenge was sudden and the three hadn't performed together as Soleil in two years and unlike back then, they had more work to do and had different schedules thus limiting their practice time. After getting an idea from Otome, who had Akari Ōzora and Yū Hattori as her "managers for the day" because they passed their auditions, Ichigo decided to have her, Aoi, and Ran to do the same for each other in order to rekindle the sunny light that Soleil once had. Fast forwarding to the day of the battle, the three managed to work in as much practice as possible despite their schedules. The performance turned out to be the best Soleil had ever put on, despite Ichigo's minor mistake before the chorus, which was able to be covered up by Aoi and Ran. In the end, the unit lost to WM and though was defeated this time, they promised to rise even higher than they did that day.

Transition between Season 2 and Season 3
After the final episodes of Season 2 where Ichigo was doing activities as a member of the idol unit 2wingS with Dream Academy's Seira Otoshiro for the Twinkle Star Cup, 2wingS has presumably disbanded and Ichigo has returned to Soleil, which is labeled as a semi-active unit due to the members having other agendas to attend to.

Current Activities
It is shown that Soleil still has jobs and appearances as a unit as revealed in Episode 104, where the members were shown heading off to prepare for an appearance as the unit.

As of Episode 125, Soleil is currently on a 6 month nationwide tour titled "Soleil: Our Dream." The purpose of this tour is to kick-start their dream of keeping Soleil going for as long as they can.

Members

 * Ichigo Hoshimiya (leader)
 * Aoi Kiriya
 * Ran Shibuki

Soleil Main Coords
Soleil uses the sun based Coords for the most of their performances, and the dresses' designs and patterns are based on the name and uses the color palette of warm colors.
 * Sunshine Coord (Ichigo)
 * Sunrise Coord (Aoi)
 * Sunset Coord (Ran)

Knowledge of Dance Special Audition
Soleil had also used their respective Premium Rare Coords for the Special Audition for the Knowledge of Dance in Episode 40.
 * Aurora Kiss Coord (Ichigo)
 * Kaleido Mirror Coord (Aoi)
 * Multi Color Coord (Ran)

Nationwide Tour Opening Performance
Before the start of the tour "Soleil Our Dream", Soleil performed their Tour Opening Performance in their respective High Parade Coords in Episode 125.
 * High Pink Parade Coord (Ichigo)
 * High Blue Parade Coord (Aoi)
 * High Purple Parade Coord (Ran)

Soleil Second Main Coords
Soleil will be using these coords for their comeback performances after their Nationwide Tour in 2015 Series Part 6. The coords that shows energy and maturness matches the trio with growing radiance perfectly.
 * Star Sunshine Coord (Ichigo)
 * Star Sunrise Coord (Aoi)
 * Star Sunset Coord (Ran)

Songs

 * Diamond Happy
 * Signalize!
 * Idol Activity!
 * Calendar Girl
 * Original Star☆彡
 * Good morning my dream
 * Dramatic Girl (w/ Luminas, Photokatsu only)
 * Sunny Day Little Sunday (Photokatsu only)

Stages

 * Sunny Park Stage
 * Soleil Stage
 * Star Ship Stage
 * Sky Sweet Stage
 * Triple Melody Stage
 * Trump Room Stage
 * Soleil Festival Stage (DCD)

Trivia

 * Ichigo is the only one of the three to keep her signature color. Aoi (blue) is orange themed, and Ran (purple) is red themed.
 * This is the second unit introduced in season one to perform in season two and three.
 * Despite being a Pop unit, none of the members are pop idols. Ichigo is a cute idol, Aoi is a cool idol, and Ran is a sexy idol.
 * This is the third unit to share an aura, but the first aura-sharing unit to be a trio.
 * Also, unlike 2wingS and WM, Soleil doesn't acquire a new, shared element to their unit aura (e.g. 2wingS' balloon flowers and WM's stardust chains), simply combining the major components of their regular auras (primroses, snowflakes, and butterflies) and having them surround the whole group instead of one person.
 * Soleil has the second most songs out of all the idol units shown so far, being beat out by Aikatsu8 (1 unit song, 8 individual solos, and 1 sub-unit duet for a total of 10 songs).
 * Soleil is the only unit to have performed in all seasons.
 * This is the only unit from season one that is currently active from the beginning of the series to have none of its members as a Starlight Queen.
 * This is the only unit that had changed its unit coord between seasons.
 * This is also the unit with the most known used unit coords.