History Characters / LoveLiveNijigasakiHighSchoolIdolClub

A stray cat that Rina found roaming the grounds of Nijgasaki High.

* DubNameChange: The English version of ''ALL STARS'' translated Hanpen's name as "Fishpuff". Notably, the cat is one of the few characters in the franchise to have a different official English name from its original Japanese one.

* DayInTheLimelight: Despite being incredibly minor side characters, they get fleshed out a bit in Shioriko's Bond Story, where they help Shioriko and the protagonist create a short film for the Nijigasaki Film Festival.

* {{Meganekko}}: They both wear glasses.

* NamedByTheAdaptation: {{Inverted}}. They were originally nameless in the anime and are only referred to in the credits as the "Student Council Secretaries", but are given the names "Satsuki" and "Uzuki" in ''ALL STARS'' and in later updates, their surnames were officially given.

[[folder:Satsuki and Uzuki]]

* NamedByTheAdaptation: {{Inverted}}. They were originally nameless in the anime and are only referred to in the credits as the "Student Council Secretaries", but are given the names "Satsuki" and "Uzuki" in ''ALL STARS''.

* MulticoloredHair: A mix of black and red hair. The red parts are most likely dyed since her sister doesn't have them.

[[folder:Himeno Ayanokouji]]
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/himeno.png]]
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Birthday:''' April 17 (Aries)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' A
-->'''Height:''' 158cm
-->'''Hobby:''' Photography
-->'''Voiced by:''' Natsumi Hioka

A school idol from Touou Academy. The perfect image of a traditional Japanese beauty, Himeno also participates in her school's flower arranging club and has a hobby as an amateur photographer. Although she appears meek, she exudes great passion for school idols and has a strong competitive drive. An alternate version of her serves as the head of the Touou Academy School Idol Club and main collaborator with the Nijigasaki School Idol Club in ''Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club''.
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* AscendedExtra: Ironically, in the poll that determined which three Normal rarity girls would become part of ''Perfect Dream Project'', Himeno placed 4th right under Kanata Konoe, locking her out of a position in Nijigasaki. However, when the ''Nijigasaki'' anime premiered, Himeno debuted as a recurring minor character as the representative for Touou's School Idol Club.
* FanGirl: It's revealed at the end of Episode 9 of ''Nijigasaki High School Idol Club'' that [[spoiler:she's been a fan of Karin's since she debuted as a model in magazines, a fact that Misaki teases her about after Karin performs "VIVID WORLD" at [=DiverFes=].]]
* YamatoNadeshiko: Her main image as she exudes the aura and demeanor of that of a traditional Japanese beauty.
[[/folder]]

* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Season 2 reveals that Kaoruko has moved on to being a teacher and has returned to Nijigasaki to take up a temporary student teaching position for training.]]

** Chapter 27 reveals [[spoiler:that it's also a FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling type with Kaoruko being the foolish sister and Shioriko being the responsible and dutiful sister. When Kaoruko got into school idols, she neglected her studies at times and always slept late, requiring Shioriko to wake her up.]]

'''WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!'''

''Anything that has not been released in the Global version of the game should be spoiler-tagged. This page may also spoil parts of the'' Nijigasaki High School Idol Club'' anime and the second season of'' School idol festival ALL STARS''. Read at your own risk!''

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Characters/LoveLive ([[Characters/LoveLiveMuse μ's]]) | Characters/LoveLiveSunshine ([[Characters/LoveLiveAqours Aqours]]) | '''Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club''' | Characters/LoveLiveSuperstar | Characters/LoveLiveSchoolIdolFestival]]-]]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_character.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Let's make a 9 colored rainbow bloom!"]]

A group of nine school idols from Nijigasaki High, located in Odaiba. Unlike other school idol units like µ's, Aqours, and Liella!, the idols of Nijigasaki High do not form one cohesive group and instead compete with each other as solo idols. Initially divided into trios based on the various apps/services that each girl was associated with, the girls were later divided into subunits ([[BreakingOldTrends following a 2-3-4 member composition instead of the usual 3-3-3]]) via popular vote. Following µ's and Aqours, the Nijigasaki school idols officially made their debut as the the third major school idol unit in the ''Love Live!'' franchise with the release of ''VideoGame/LoveLiveSchoolIdolFestivalAllStars''.

[[folder:In General]]
* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Nearly all of them get this to some level in the anime, due to the heavily altered storyline from the game.
* BreakingOldTrends:
** They don't have a name for their whole group, simply being known as "Nijigasaki High School Idol Club" or [="NijiGaku"=] for short.
** They are the first full unit whose debut and main method of exposure is from a video game (compared to the music videos, magazines and anime for µ's and Aqours).
** Instead of a group, the school idols of Nijigasaki High are all mainly solo performers. This is reflected in their albums, which are mainly comprised of solo songs with a tenth full unit song, compared to µ's and Aqours who mainly perform full unit songs with solos being extra.
** While they have three subunits like µ's and Aqours, said subunits follow a 2-3-4 member composition instead of the usual 3-3-3 used by the previous groups.
** Like µ's and Aqours, the StudentCouncilPresident of the club's school, Setsuna Yuki, is a member of the group. ''Unlike'' those groups, however, she is not a third year student, and is instead a second year. [[spoiler:Setsuna is eventually replaced as StudentCouncilPresident by Shioriko Mifune, a first year student, who ''also'' later joins the club.]]
** Unlike the anime incarnations of µ's and Aqours, the club's StudentCouncilPresident member in the anime is not an ObstructiveBureaucrat towards them prior to her induction into the club, and has no issues with its initial members even starting a school idol club to begin with, so long as they meet its minimum member requirements.
** Aki Hata, the main lyricist for the previous groups[[note]]She has written ''every song'' by µ's (except for "Koremade no Love Live!"), Aqours, A-RISE, and Saint Snow.[[/note]], has only written a few songs for the group: the title track of their debut album "TOKIMEKI Runners", and the ending song for the anime "NEO SKY, NEO MAP!". The group's discography is mainly handled by songwriters new to the ''Love Live!'' franchise.
** The club itself has ten members instead of the expected nine, although the tenth member is a non-performer. [[spoiler: It's also the only group where a member was officially added after their debut, ultimately giving the group ''[[UpToEleven eleven]]'' members.]]
* CoverVersion: The pitch behind the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival is that each character would cover the first solo of another character, with the fans voting on which character covered which song.
* FriendlyRivalry: Despite ''technically'' competing against each other for popularity points and the spotlight as solo idols, they are all still nonetheless TrueCompanions who would eagerly support each other. This notion is the topic of the anime's ninth episode.
* ImageSong: Unlike previous groups in the franchise, their discography focuses more on the group members each singing solos that convey who they are as characters. As a result, they don't sing as many songs as a full unit.
* InformedAttribute: Part of their initial pitch was that despite being under a single banner, the idols were in competition with each other. How straight this is played varies across different parts of the franchise.
** In the game proper, the competition aspect is severely downplayed and the members are for all intents and purposes a unified group whose members happen to perform individually more often than previous groups in the franchise.
** Averted in real life where the girls compete by AudienceParticipation for things such as a solo song for an upcoming album, the headliner and the encore performance during lives and winners of monthly polls.
** Also averted in the anime, where being solo idols occasionally means that they have to compete with each other over who gets to perform at events with limited participation slots, such as the Diver Fes in Episode 9 of the anime.
** This is also averted in Season 2 of ''ALL STARS'', where Ai takes her popularity as a school idol seriously enough to cite it as a reason for defecting to Lanzhu's School Idol Association, noting that it is eclipsed by that of Setsuna, Kanata, and Kasumi.
* LetsSplitUpGang: In Chapter 22 of ''ALL STARS'', they do this to thwart the Monitoring Committee's attempts to stop them from carrying out their guerilla live. To wit, the members all performed individually in different locations at the school and streamed the live online, so in the event that one of them was caught by the committee, she can simply switch the live feed to another member's location. As the committee did not have the manpower to go after every member, they were unable to completely disrupt the event.
* OddballInTheSeries: The series is drastically different from both ''[[Anime/LoveLive School Idol Project]]'' and ''[[Anime/LoveLiveSunshine Sunshine]]'' as a result of BreakingOldTrends.
* OfficiallyShortenedTitle: [="NijiGaku"=] from ''Nijigasaki Gakuen Sukūru Aidoru Dōkōkai'' (''Nijigasaki High School Idol Club'')
* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: Both the anime and ''ALL STARS'' began with the premise that the School Idol Club initially had five members (Setsuna, Kasumi, Shizuku, Emma, and Kanata), but disbanded due to conflicting views on the sort of school idol each member wanted to be, and their inability to work as a group. Part of the initial plot involves restarting the club, which includes persuading the five original members to rejoin.
* TechnicianVersusPerformer: In Season 2 of ''ALL STARS'', the remaining school idols who have not defected to Lanzhu's School Idol Association become the performer to her technician. To wit, they continue to perform as school idols because they genuinely wish to bring happiness to their audience, and have songs that are tailored to the individual characteristics of their members. They also refuse to accept Lanzhu's offers of expensive amenities and backing, believing those things to dilute the appeal of being a school idol. Unlike Lanzhu, who believes that only the best member can be a center, they continue to share the spotlight as solo idols, regardless of the skill level of individual members.
* UndyingLoyalty: Though it is most pronounced in Ayumu and Kasumi, the school idols that did not defect to Lanzhu's School Idol Association hold this towards the protagonist. To wit, they express disgust towards the way Lanzhu has treated their president and it is a major reason why none of them (with the exception of Shizuku for a brief stint) are willing to even consider her overtures towards them.

!Ayumu's Childhood Friend

The protagonist of ''ALL STARS'' and the ''Nijigasaki High School Idol Club'' anime. She is a childhood friend of Ayumu's and is a big fan of school idols after personally witnessing and being blown away by their inspiring performance.\\\

Though Yu is based off of the protagonist of ''ALL STARS'', she and the protagonist are considered distinct from one another as of the release of the anime continuity-based ''Rainbow Days Photo Essay'' series and the ''ALL STARS'' continuity-based comic tapestry series.

[[folder:In General]]
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Their primary talent as fitting for their role as the Nijigasaki School Idol Club's reliable supporter and manager:
** The protagonist of ''ALL STARS'' has the uncanny ability to recognize everyone's strengths and weaknesses and helping them improve from there, a useful skill that's helped the school idols time and again as their leader.
** Yu has a similar skill in that she can envision a school idol's full potential just by taking a good look at their performance herself and uses it to help them achieve just that. Another skill Yu has is that she manages to pick up the piano at an almost inhuman speed, going from having no experience whatsoever in Episode 3 to being able to play a complete piano arrangement of "CHASE!" in Episode 10, all in the span of a single school term despite not having the same musical experience and background her game counterpart has.
* AudienceSurrogate: They can be seen as a stand-in for all the fans of the ''Love Live'' franchise, being a huge fan of school idols while not actually being one themselves. While the protagonist in the game is more fleshed out than the typical FeaturelessProtagonist, she still doesn't have much of a background beyond "Ayumu's childhood friend who loves school idols".
* BreakingOldTrends: They are the only leader-type character in the franchise to:
** Not be associated with the color orange in any way, nor have orange hair.
** Not be a performing school idol.
** Have a unique image color not shared by any other character (black).
* CanonName: {{Zigzagged}}. The name "Yu Takasaki" won the official online fan poll to determine the name of the ''ALL STARS's'' protagonist's counterpart in the anime, and is the one used for merchandise and material related to the ''anime version'' of the character. However, the protagonist of ''ALL STARS'' remains unnamed in official material and works related to the game, as the comic tapestry short manga series as well as the animated drama shorts avoid referring to her directly by any name nor is she referred to as "Yu Takasaki" either.
* ChildhoodFriends: The core element of their character that they share together in both mediums is that they've both known Ayumu since they were little, growing up in the same apartment building as neighbors near Odaiba.
* CuteSportsClubManager: In practice, this is what their actual role within the club is since they're not a school idol themselves.
* FanGirl: For school idols in general. In the game, the protagonist is an especially big one for both µ's and Aqours after she saw their joint live together in Chapter 1. When she gets to meet them personally on separate occasions, she's more than ecstatic to finally do so. In the anime, Yu becomes a big Setsuna fangirl after she watches her outdoor live in the first episode and this leads her to be a fangirl for all school idols.
* TheGadfly: It's subtle, but some of the protagonist's dialogue options in some stories show that she's fond of teasing her friends every now and then. This is carried over with Yu in the anime.
* GenkiGirl: {{Downplayed}}. They burst into excitable energy whenever school idols come into the topic and are by default, cheerful girls, but they're comparatively more reserved otherwise compared to fellow protagonists, Honoka and Chika, before them.
* TheHeart: They fill in this role as the person who brought the members together. With them joining, Setsuna hopes in both the game and the anime that the club won't disband like last time.
* TheHyena: They both easily laugh at any and all of Ai's puns. According to Ayumu, they've always had an infantily-childish sense of humor since kindergarten.
* MoralityPet: While Kasumi can be a little [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold mischievous]] around her fellow school idols, she's nothing but sincerely and openly affectionate towards the protagonist and Yu.
* NiceGirl: Comes with the territory of being the club's main supporter and manager. The protagonist and Yu are kind and encouraging towards their friends and they do everything in their ability to make sure their well-being is accommodated for.
* TheReliableOne: The Nijigasaki School Idol Club members acknowledge them as a very dependable person and so know that they can always count on them no matter what in both the game and anime.
* SempaiKohai: The protagonist and Yu are the sempai to the Nijigasaki first-years and are referred to as such.
* SupportingProtagonist: While they're part of the game and anime's story, the focus is on the other club members.

[[folder:''ALL STARS'' Protagonist]]
A second year from Nijigasaki High School who serves as TheProtagonist and PlayerCharacter in ''Love Live! School idol Festival ALL STARS''. Upon seeing the magic of school idols for herself, she becomes an instant fan whose love for school idols is practically boundless. Despite this, she prefers to stay on the sidelines, acting as the club's songwriter, lyricist, and manager to help realize the dreams of the club's members. Her analytical skills and logical reasoning abilities are second to none, making her the perfect person to discover the strengths and weaknesses of her friends and use them to create songs and dances that are truly unique to each member.
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* AffectionateNickname: Mari calls the player "Rainbow Student" in GratuitousEnglish, playing off the word "niji" in "Nijigasaki". [[spoiler:As of Chapter 23 in ''ALL STARS'', Mia has started calling her "Baby-chan" when referring to her.]]
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: School idols who are unfamiliar with the protagonist and her role in the Nijigasaki School Idol Club tend to look down on her for being part of a school idol club despite not being a school idol herself. Nico initially didn't allow her to participate in the friendly competition between the Nijigasaki School Idol Club and µ's in Chapter 6 because she wasn't a school idol, some of the volunteer school idols from the forum Ayumu looked at in Chapter 16 didn't have any confidence in her managing the [[spoiler: School Idol Festival]] for the same reason, and Lanzhu's dislike of her is also rooted under the same basis that she wasn't one of them with the addition of the protagonist being supposedly unremarkably ordinary in her eyes.
* ChickMagnet: Her kindness and supportive nature earns her the affection of all 27 school idols.
* CommonalityConnection: She forms a close bond with Maki and Riko for being the composer of their respective group and with Kotori for being the supporter of their group.
** In Chapter 8, she invites Honoka and Chika for a sleepover in her house and they get along really well with each other since they have a lot in common as the leader of their respective group.
* {{Determinator}}: The protagonist is willing to do whatever it takes to help her friends succeed and achieve their dreams no matter what. Unlike with Honoka and Chika though, she's almost ''too'' good at this; she has a tendency to shoulder the burden if she blames herself for a setback and double down on her efforts, which at one point results in her alienating the other club members because she wouldn't allow them to help her.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Simply referred to by everyone in the game (except the Nijigasaki first years) as "[Ayumu's] childhood friend", "Manager", "Pres", or "Chief". The first years call her "Senpai".
* FeaturelessProtagonist: Zigzagged as most of the story is experienced from the protagonist's view, and as such she has no defined physical appearance, but she is established as her own unique character with her own skills and ideals (but no real backstory). Her anime counterpart averts this as she has both a canon appearance and name.
* {{Flanderization}}: The protagonist suffers from this in Season 2, where her love of school idols is ''massively'' played up to the point where it completely overrides other personality traits. Most egregious in Chapter 29, where Lanzhu [[spoiler:outright admits that she treated the protagonist like trash and apologizes profusely for it]], but the protagonist ''barely cares'' and almost immediately switches the topic to gushing about school idols.
* TheGhost: Unlike Yu, the protagonist is neither named in-story, nor does she physically show up in any way in any ''ALL STARS''-related material like the official comic tapestries and voiced dramas, only indirectly referred to whenever she's brought up. Ayumu's comic tapestry story is the only time she ever gets to speak directly[[note]]Though she also gets to speak in a brief flashback in Rina's comic tapestry.[[/note]] but still doesn't physically appear at all otherwise.
* HelloInsertNameHere: You name the protagonist at the start of the game, mostly for the purposes of putting a name in the text box for the protagonist's dialogue. Her anime counterpart has the CanonName "Yu Takasaki".
* HeroicBSOD:
** The protagonist gets hit with a bad case of this during her piano battle with Maki in ''ALL STARS'' Chapter 6, to the point that she couldn't bring herself to play the piece she spent most of her time practicing on for most of the chapter. Her subsequent loss and inability to find the same radiance she saw in Maki's performance with the song she wrote puts her in a depressive slump for a couple of days, worrying her friends greatly.
** The protagonist once again hits another depressive slump during Chapter 15, when she essentially runs herself ragged trying to contact ''every single volunteer'' who didn't show up during the sign-ups, all while blaming herself for the screw up and attempting to take responsibility for it all by rejecting her friends' attempts to help her out. The amount of stress from this negatively impacts her psyche greatly, and it culminates in her lashing out at Ayumu by the end of the chapter after repeatedly brushing her away coldly previously, resulting in Ayumu quitting the club.
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: The protagonist has a tendency of belittling herself around others as she doesn't see herself as anything special compared to everyone around her despite the tremendous amount of support she's given to her friends and her own accomplishments to go with it. Thanks to this, she's also prone to quickly beat herself up for any perceived failure on her part as shown in Chapters 6, 15, and 20.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Non-romantic example. In Season 2 of ''ALL STARS'', the protagonist states that she has no issues with any school idols in the School Idol Club leaving to join Lanzhu's School Idol Association, if they personally think that it will improve their abilities as idols. Ultimately, she cares about their personal success and wants them to achieve it through the means they best deem fit, even if it is not under her leadership.
* ItsAllMyFault: There are shades of this behavior during Chapter 15, when the Club fails to attract even 10% of the required number of volunteers for the School Idol Festival, the protagonist becomes desperate to gain additional volunteers and starts running herself to the brink of exhaustion trying to contact every single person who didn't show. When Ayumu asks about it, she insists that she has to take care of it herself and refuses to let anyone else help her.
* JerkassRealization: After she takes the time to calm down and talk to the other club members about her feelings, the protagonist realizes how badly she treated Ayumu during their fight the other day and rushes back to school (while Ayumu is livestreaming, no less) to apologize to her.
* TheLeader: As the president of the Nijigasaki School Idol Club.
* PlayerCharacter: For ''ALL STARS''.
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:She ended up studying abroad for 2 months after Chapter 17. Because of this, she's unavailable from chapter 18 to 19]].
* SupportingLeader: While she is the leader of Nijigasaki School Idol, she's not a school idol by choice. Preferring to be their number one fan and supporter.
* TookALevelInJerkass: During the events of Chapter 15, the volunteer signups not going to plan takes a heavy toll on the protagonist's psyche, and her increasing desire to see the School Idol Festival succeed causes her to [[ItsAllMyFault blame herself for the screw-up.]] As she attempts to win over volunteers, she becomes increasingly cold and distant to Ayumu, and in a confrontation at the end of the chapter her selfishness causes Ayumu to break down and quit. She doesn't really stop to realize what she's done until [[JerkassRealization Shioriko points it out for her.]]
* WeakButSkilled: A variation, as while she claims to lack the ability to become a school idol herself, she happens to excel in multiple other fields that, incidentally, make her a great leader to other school idols, including songwriting, choreography, analytics, logic and reasoning, and charisma.
* WorthyOpponent: Mia eventually begins seeing the protagonist as such starting from around Chapters 22-23 of ''ALL STARS'', even admitting to Rina that she's excited for the school idol tournament because that means she gets to compete with the protagonist as fellow songwriters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Yu Takasaki]]
[[quoteright:188:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c01_1.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Black
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Height:''' 156cm
-->'''Voiced by:''' Hinaki Yano (Anime)

The main character of the anime ''Nijigasaki High School Idol Club''. After witnessing Setsuna Yuki's passionate performance of "CHASE!" one fateful morning with her childhood friend Ayumu Uehara at Nijigasaki's school grounds, Yu Takasaki is instantly taken in by the world of school idols, inspiring her to become their #1 supporter in an attempt for her to find out what her own dreams are by helping them realize theirs.
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* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Subdued compared to the rest of the cast, but Yu is more obviously a GenkiGirl than her game counterpart, being more excitable by default and prone to surges of emotion. She is able to keep her cool when the situation calls for it, but she handles it a little differently from the Protagonist, who prefers to stop and think when a problem arises.
* AdaptationalBackstoryChange: Yu being part of the general curriculum course and not the music course like her game counterpart in the anime means she doesn't have the same musical background and experience the protagonist of ''ALL STARS'' has, though she's a fast learner when it comes to playing the piano by herself. [[spoiler:This changes when she makes the decision to switch to the music course in the middle of the semester in the final episode after finally realizing what her dream is.]]
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: {{Downplayed}} as Yu's game counterpart is normally as nice and kindhearted as you'd expect her to be, but her tendency of [[ItsAllMyFault shouldering every single burden by herself whenever something goes wrong]] gives her a bad case of tunnel vision that causes her to act more coldly and selfishly towards her friends, albeit not intentionally. Because of this, as well as several other negative factors that contributed to it, she gets into an avoidable fight with Ayumu in Chapter 15, causing the latter to quit the club by the end of it. The protagonist doesn't really realize how badly she treated Ayumu prior nor did she understand and take Ayumu's own feelings into consideration at all until midway into [[JerkassRealization Chapter 16]]. By contrast, Yu actively lets her friends help her as much as she helps them, and due to avoiding the same pitfalls her game counterpart encountered, ends up better emotionally compared to her. Thanks to this, Yu doesn't wind up neglecting or coldly alienating Ayumu off at any point at all, and consistently remains warm and ever-supportive of her childhood friend throughout the anime. [[spoiler:In fact, neither of their confrontations in the anime devolve into an outright fight at all, as Yu assures and heavily implies that Ayumu will always be her most important person in the first one, while she quickly backs off and doesn't push the issue further when she realizes Ayumu was too distressed to listen in the second one.]]
* AffectionateNickname: Ai calls her "Yuyu".
* AmbiguousSituation: The anime never clarifies or confirms if Yu is the president of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club just like her game counterpart. On one hand, the girls don't address her as the club president like they do for the protagonist of ''ALL STARS'' yet her role as their manager and supporter remains mostly the same in the anime. The club presidency is brought up a a total of once in the series when Ai asks about it but is dropped off just as quickly without giving a single concrete answer to the question in hand at all.
* {{Catchphrase}}: Yu has a tendency to say "Tokimeki" in the anime, which is translated as either "thrilling", "heart-pounding", or "exciting", whenever something, usually school idols, sparks a special kind of excitement in her heart.
* CoatCape: Amusingly, Yu sometimes wears her school jersey like a cape in some of the anime's episodes.
* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: A strange example. While her hair is predominantly black, its green tips match her green eyes completely.
* CutenessProximity: Ayumu doing the "Ayu-bun" gesture from their childhood never fails to make Yu all giddy towards her. She also finds Kasumi adorable in Episode 2 of the anime.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Her reason for why she wants to give the school idols all the support they can get from her in the anime.
--> '''Yu:''' I mean, I don't have any dreams of my own yet, but...if I could support someone chasing their dreams...something would finally start for me too.
* EarlyBirdCameo:
** Before the anime aired, Yu's first official appearance was in the "Muteki-kyuu*Believer" MV as a doll Ayumu is holding at the beginning of the song. She also shows up as herself in the "Mirai Harmony" MV, but only for a few seconds and with her eyes hidden from the audience.
** Yu makes her first ''Nijiyon'' debut in [[https://twitter.com/hibiki_ms_lb7/status/1342679263086923776 a special [=4koma=]]] for a stamp rally held in Odaiba to promote the anime, though she doesn't really appear in-person in the comic itself.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Initial releases of Yu's character design for the anime depicted Yu as somewhat stoic or deadpan, which is a far cry from her game counterpart's cheerful personality in ''ALL STARS'' and a hilarious contrast to her official character profile in the anime where she excitedly states that she's passionate about school idols. It's not until later releases of promotional images for the anime, shown a few weeks before its airing, that Yu's character artwork becomes better reflective of her canonical personality in-story.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Yu has several of these in the first episode of the anime:
** One of her first scenes in the anime has her encouraging Ayumu to wear a cute pink frilly dress they found at a store window, telling her that it would look great on her and then follows it up by sincerely saying that Ayumu looks super cute in anything she wears with a completely straight face, with the latter embarrassingly remarking on how Yu has a penchant for saying stuff like that. Later on, when Yu sees the small bunny hoodie right next to the dress, Yu looks back on how Ayumu used to wear something like that while cutely saying "Ayu-bun" when they were kids, fondly says she was cute back then, and then half-jokingly tells her to do the "Ayu-bun" gesture she used to do for old times' sake. This firmly establishes Yu's sincere and encouraging nature, her subtle tendency of lightly teasing her friends with honest words, her intimate friendship with Ayumu, as well as her fondness for adorable people and things.
** [[ImagineSpot Yu's visualization of Setsuna's performance of "CHASE!"]] during the live that sparked Yu's love for school idols, her enthusiastic fangirling over Setsuna and sudden excitability that quickly follows after Setsuna's performance, and how she stayed up all night just to research all that she could about school idols establish [[AwesomenessByAnalysis Yu's talent of realizing and being able to recognize a school idol's full individual potential and ideal self]] when she sees how they perform and present themselves, as well as how big of a fangirl she is when it comes to school idols.
** Her earlier denial when Ayumu tells her that her "Yu-bun" sounds cuter than Ayumu's "Ayu-bun" combined with her speech to Ayumu above where she confesses to the latter her desire of wanting to support others so something could start for herself too, her promise to always be by Ayumu's side when [[spoiler: Ayumu declares that she'll pursue being a school idol]] in front of her, and how she gently smiles and holds Ayumu's hand with both of her own to reassure her before making said promise showcase Yu's [[NiceGirl kind, gentle, and supportive nature]] while leaving small hints of some self-deprecation towards herself with her goal of trying to find her own dreams through her support of others.
* GirlishPigtails: With green tips.
* TheGlomp: Yu has a habit of doing this whenever she gets enchanted by the school idols' performances or if she finds them cute in some way.
* LittleNo: [[spoiler: Her answer to a clearly upset Ayumu asking her if "Setsuna-chan is more important (than me) for you". It helps very little, though, given that Ayumu's insecurities are far more complex than simple jealousy.]]
* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Yu is Ayumu's kind, ever supportive, and very reliable childhood friend who Ayumu loves and has been very attached to since their childhood. It's primarily the reason Ayumu becomes [[ClingyJealousGirl uncomfortable]] whenever she has to share Yu with the other school idols and why just the notion of being parted from her distresses her so much.
* MeaningfulName: Each kanji of her full name (高咲　侑) denotes her role in the story.
** The 高 character is taken from Kosaka ('''高'''坂) and Takami ('''高'''海), the surnames of Honoka and Chika respectively. All 3 girls are {{The Leader}}s of their respective group.
** The 咲 character comes from Nijigasaki (虹ヶ'''咲'''), the school she attends.
** The 侑 character means "to help" which describes her role in supporting everyone in the club.
** Her first name "Yu" is a PunnyName that denotes that she's supposed to be you, the player.
* MistakenForCheating: PlayedWith, because while Ayumu and Yu are not dating, [[ImpliedLoveInterest (maybe?)]], episode 10 has a scene where Setsuna stumbles by accident and falls upon Yu's chest, Ayumu is shocked upon noticing this, and it is played up with said angle for all its worth, becoming a key component in the setup for Episode's 11 DramaBomb.
* MulticoloredHair: Uniquely for a ''Love Live!'' character, Yu is portrayed with black hair that sports a green gradient on the bottom.
* NonUniformUniform: She doesn't wear a vest with her summer uniform, and she's also the only one of the group who doesn't wear her shirt tucked in.
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: In the anime. Yu continuously gets uncomfortably close to girls that she has barely met (to the point of glomping them), if they are involved in any way with school idols, which gets her chided by Ayumu and Kasumi (ironically, an example of this when they first met).
* ThePromise: She makes one with Ayumu in the anime, promising the latter that she'll always be by her side to support her after Ayumu [[spoiler: declares her intent of becoming a school idol and wanting Yu to watch over her all the while]] at the end of episode 1.
* PunnyName: "Yu" is a pun on the English pronoun, "you". In ''ALL STARS'', she's supposed to be ''you'', the player.
* StealthHiBye: She suddenly pops out of nowhere next to Kasumi without warning while the latter was troubled by her thoughts in Episode 2.
* TomboyWithAGirlyStreak: Yu's fashion sense and wardrobe choices are noticeably more tomboyish and less feminine than her friends, even as a kid. Nevertheless, her mannerisms, hobbies, and bubbly personality still make her girliness stand out more in spite of it.
* TsurimeEyes: Yu has them in the anime, which serves to highlight her perky personality and to contrast her with her more demure best friend Ayumu's TaremeEyes.
* WingdingEyes: Yu gets small hearts in her eyes whenever she gets overly excited from fangirling in the anime. So far, the only person who's ever evoked this kind of reaction out of her is Setsuna.
[[/folder]]

!A•ZU•NA
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dream_land21_dream_world21.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:A•ZU•NA's first single, "Dream Land! Dream World!"]]

The "Smile" subunit, a trio of Ayumu Uehara, Shizuku Osaka, and Setsuna Yuki. Much like Printemps and [=CYaRon!=] before them, they primarily focus on upbeat, cheery pop music. Their unique blend of soft and strong vocals creates a juxtaposition that gives the subunit a signature sound.

* GenkiGirl: They are the resident "Smile" unit whose songs are very cheerful and upbeat, following Printemps and [=CYaRon!=]. Ironically, none of the group's members really have this personality themselves.
* GenreShift: "Maze Town" diverges ''heavily'' from the normal cutesy pop music in favor of a goth rock track that wouldn't sound out of place for Guilty Kiss or Saint Snow, featuring gratuitous electric guitar and ''pipe organ''.
* MeaningfulName: The subunit name is a composite of all three members' first names, each of which has three syllables: '''A'''yumu, Shi'''zu'''ku, and Setsu'''na'''.
* {{Motif}}: While they are associated with typical "genki" songs, they are specifically themed around a "theme park" aesthetic, justified in-universe as the members wanting to come up with a way to represent a variety of musical styles without sacrificing their integrity as a unit. Many of their songs are based on various things you would see in a theme park, such as "Happy Nyan! Days" (a cat cafe) and "Maze Town" (a haunted house).

[[folder:Ayumu Uehara]]
[[quoteright:204:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_ayumu.png]]
[[caption-width-right:204:The Hard-working School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Light Pink
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Birthday:''' March 1 (Pisces)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' A
-->'''Height:''' 159cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B82/W58/H84
-->'''Symbol:''' Bow
-->'''Voiced by:''' Aguri Onishi
\\\

An ordinary girl with no exceptional talents, Ayumu is seemingly content with just living a normal high school life. But when she and her childhood friend stumbled upon a school idol performance for the first time, a new path would suddenly appear in Ayumu's world. Despite not being able to sing or dance, Ayumu would nevertheless venture on to become a school idol herself.

* AchillesInHisTent: In chapter 15, Ayumu quits the club due to a disagreement with her childhood friend. In chapter 16, Ayumu recognizes the hard work that they already did and not wanting to let it all go to waste, decided to become a school idol again.
* AdaptationalPersonalityChange: Zigzagged on [[AdaptationalNiceGuy both]] [[AdaptationalJerkass ends]].
** ''ALL STARS'' Ayumu originally only agreed to be a school idol in order to impress the protagonist. She's a lot more overt in showing her emotions without regard, particularly being jealous of any other girl that interacts with her childhood friend. This jealousy of hers is PlayedForLaughs, and the conflict in Chapter 15-16 has little to do with this, but is instead born after the protagonist neglects her when she becomes obsessed with the School Idol Festival's success, leading to Ayumu quitting the club. Ayumu's development through this is based around learning that she actually enjoys being a school idol, and that she can also rely on others besides her childhood friend (i.e., Shioriko).
** !Anime Ayumu at first appears to be more comprehensive and supportive of Yu, going as far as yelling that she loves school idols and that she wants to be one. Her jealousy is also far more subtle. However, as the reality of the dream that she choose to chase besides Yu becomes more overt, Ayumu starts to show more cracks and the issues underneath become more apparent as a combination of jealousy, emotional abandonment, and fear of the future makes her emotional outburst arguably worse than in the game, putting her claims in Episode 1 in a different light as it's now clear that she initially became a school idol so she could perform ''exclusively'' for Yu. While she doesn't quit the club, it takes the support from Yu, Setsuna and her fans to get her to learn that as a school idol she doesn't stand alone, that she can share her love and emotions with others without detracting from her relationship with Yu, and that, no matter what, Yu's feelings for her are unwavering.
* ADayInTheLimelight:
** ''ALL STARS'' Chapter 15-16 serves as one for her, as it further explores her reason for joining the School Idol Club and bestows her with some CharacterDevelopment regarding her own dreams and the fight with the protagonist in the previous chapter.
** Episodes 10-12 from the anime give her a lot of development, regarding her insecurities, her jealousy and her fear of a future where she drifts away from Yu. It culminates with Ayumu getting a second insert song, "Awakening Promise".
* AffectionateNickname: To her [[RunningGag recurring embarrassment]], Ai nicknames her as "Ayu-bun/Ayu-pyon" in the anime.
* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: She gives one of these to Yu at the end of Episode 11, after being led to believe that her friendship with the latter is in jeopardy due to Yu ostensibly spending more time with the other members of the club and thinking that she was LockedOutOfTheLoop regarding Yu leaning to play the piano, which Setsuna is privy to.
* BunniesForCuteness: She has an affinity for bunnies and her "Excited Animal" outfit in the game has her wear bunny ears for it. In the anime, Yu recalls that when Ayumu was a kid, she used to wear a cute little bunny costume while saying "Ayu-bun/Ayu-pyon" complete with bunny ear gestures, which Yu still finds as adorable in the present day. Kasumi seems to have the same idea which is why she has Ayumu do her "Ayu-bun" thing as part of her school idol intro, much to Ayumu's embarrassment and Yu's delight.
* CantStayNormal: After the fight between her and the protagonist in Chapter 15, Ayumu loses her drive to be a school idol and skips school for a day. When Shioriko checks on her and subsequently takes her shopping, Ayumu insists that she doesn't need school idols anymore and tries to get back into her old hobbies. However, after realizing that her hobbies aren't keeping her fulfilled anymore and discovering that the School Idol Festival is in danger, she realizes that she truly loves being a school idol and returns to the club to help save the Festival.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Possibly the most extreme case in the franchise, as the early yonkoma portrayed her as self-centered, spiteful and a straight {{Jerkass}} who treated Rina as a ButtMonkey. Contrast with her canon persona, who is kind, supportive and hard-working.
* ChildhoodFriends: With the player character/Yu Takasaki in ''ALL STARS'' and in the ''Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club'' anime.
* ClingyJealousGirl:
** In ''ALL STARS'', she does not act on it but she does get visibly jealous when someone else is getting the full attention of her childhood friend. Then there's her Bond Story, where she ''stalks'' the protagonist after she starts skipping their usual meet-ups.
** This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQupx7FhHxQ voiced drama]] also has Ayumu become troubled by how close the other members of the club have gotten to her childhood friend, as well as some of them resolving to get even closer to her.
** Unlike the other cast members whose usages of AdaptationPersonalityChange in the anime is more obvious, Ayumu underwent this effect more subtly by significantly exacerbating her clinginess and co-dependency towards Yu. The show makes a RunningGag out of Ayumu reacting with surprise or disapproval when Yu gets close to other school idols, but towards the end of the season PlayedForDrama is in effect as the target of her jealousy turns towards Setsuna when she feels that her friendship with Yu is becoming increasingly strained, which culminates in [[spoiler:a sudden LoveConfession in a desperate attempt to prevent Yu from leaving her]]. Over the course of various episodes in the anime, she visibly reacts to Yu fawning over other girls:
*** In Episode 1, she seems surprised/upset when Yu names Setsuna with the subfix "-chan", using a more formal "-san" herself.
*** In Episode 2, she is somewhat perturbed when Yu calls Kasumi "cute" and fawns over her.
*** A lot more subtle in episode 3, but when [[spoiler: Yu throws herself at Setsuna, Ayumu holds Yu tightly by the hand through the rest of the shot after helping her to get up.]]
*** In Episode 5, she visibly reacts twice in different degrees to Yu's declaration of wanting to support all of the school idols in the club.
*** In Episode 7, in a blink-or-you'll-miss-it moment, [[https://www.facebook.com/lovelivesif/photos/a.650811001621957/3516833165019712/ Ayumu's expression subtly, but visibly, changes from a smile to a small surprised frown when Yu starts fawning over Haruka during the latter's visit to Nijigasaki.]]
*** Episode 10 has a more dramatic spin than in previous episodes, with Ayumu becoming noticeably more uncomfortable throughout the episode the more she realizes that Yu's dream extends to all the other girls in the club and not just her, which was her main reason for joining the club. It doesn't help matters that while walking down a hallway with Yu, Setsuna trips, causing the former to catch the latter to keep her from falling. Whilst looking for Yu, Ayumu winds up seeing what appears to be Setsuna embracing Yu from the floor below, and is incredibly stunned as a result.
*** Episode 11 ultimately turns this into the centerpoint of the DramaBomb, as [[spoiler:her jealousy of Setsuna and her desire to stay Yu's best friend ultimately causes her to snap at the end of the episode and [[LoveConfession profess her feelings to Yu out of sheer desperation.]]]]
* CoverVersion: Covers Shizuku's "Anata no Risou no Heroine" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* CuteClumsyGirl: Often fails at idol activities and beats herself up for those failures.
* DemonicPossession: In the Famitsu {{Yonkoma}}. It's revealed that her bitter attitude and generally {{Jerkass}} behavior towards Rina is the result of being possessed by an evil spirit. She is instantly exorcised by Nozomi (referred to as "a passing shrine maiden") and returns to normal.
* {{Determinator}}: She is determined to accomplish her dream to become a school idol, one step at a time. Her character pitch specifically highlights this trait, and in Chapter 1 of ''ALL STARS'', the reason why she was recruited was because she's a hard worker.
* EmbarrassingNickname: Ayu-bun/Ayu-pyon serves as this for her, though Ai intended for it to be an AffectionateNickname instead.
* FeminineWomenCanCook: She's not as good as Kanata, but she's good enough to prepare a bento for herself.
* GirlNextDoor: Ayumu is a cute, modest, hardworking NiceGirl who also happens to live literally next door to her ChildhoodFriend.
* GirlyGirl: PlayedWith. One part of Ayumu's development in the anime, is to ''accept'' that she is this, even though she's not particularly tomboyish or masculine - she just got to an age where she started to think being like this was childish and embarrassing.
* GoGetterGirl: She's very hardworking, but always seeks approval from others.
* GreenEyedMonster: While she occasionally gets jealous of the other school idols every now and then, it's Setsuna that she harbors the most envy towards for her growing relationship with Yu starting from Episode 10. Her feelings reach boiling point in Episode 11 [[spoiler:when she mistakenly believes that Yu told Setsuna about her piano playing first before her, not knowing that Setsuna accidentally walked in on Yu playing it both times and that Ayumu was supposed to be the one she was going to surprise about it first.]]
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: A core aspect of her motivation to become a school idol, although unlike Honoka and Chika there's a big twist in relation to it. In both the game and the anime, it turns out that her actual reason for becoming an idol is strongly tied to her attachment to the player character/Yu, wherein the degree of "special" is being special to ''them'' rather than being seen as special by anyone else. She does ultimately outgrow this mindset in the game/anime and embraces being a school idol as she learns to express her emotions and appreciate the attention from both Yu, and her newfound fans.
* ImpliedLoveInterest: To the player character/Yu Takasaki due to their close intimate relationship as childhood friends that also has a lot of [[RomanticTwoGirlFriendship romantic subtext]].
* KubrickStare: She has [[https://imgur.com/a/n2ry9ZP one of these]] in Episode 11 when Yu tries to tell her about her dream, sparking her jealousy as she became a school idol solely to gain Yu's attention and for no other reason.
* TheLeader: PlayedWith. The Nijigasaki School Idol Club's official leader in-story is actually her childhood friend, the Player Character/Yu Takasaki, and they all defer to her as such. However, Ayumu usually takes the lead in promotional material, she is lumped with Honoka and Chika in ''ALL STARS'' material as the Nijigasaki representative, has the most centers through Nijigasaki's discography, and is also the only Nijigasaki member to get ''two'' new songs through the anime's 1st season. The 1st Anniversary app icon for ''ALL STARS'' is Ayumu, following the tradition stablished by the previous leaders/protagonists for ''School Idol Festival''.
* MadnessMantra: She repeatedly utters "cute is scary" several times after being forced by Kasumi to adopt a "cute image" for her idol introductory video.
* MoralityPet: Shioriko has a soft spot for Ayumu, being closer to her than anyone else in the club. Part of it is because she sees the value of Ayumu's hard work in being a school idol despite not being suited for it.
* {{Motif}}: Pink bows and [[FlowerMotifs pink flowers]] (cherry blossoms, roses and sunrays) are prominent elements through all the media she appears in. This plays up into a prominent analogy through the game/anime, with Ayumu slowly "blossoming" from a shy, clingy and insecure girl, into a more mature and confident person that can inspire others. The lyrics of "Kaika Sengen/Blossoming Declaration" and "Awakening Promise" are more overt with the symbolism.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In both the game and the anime:
** She genuinely feels terrible for quitting the club after getting into a fight with her childhood friend in the heat of the moment in Chapter 15 of ''ALL STARS'' and wants to apologize to both the club members and the protagonist for what happened, though it takes her until the end of Chapter 16 to do so due to a combination of being afraid to face them and her questioning why she became a school idol in the first place.
** In the anime, she feels embarrassed over having forced her feelings towards Yu in Episode 11, but tries to sidestep the issue whenever Yu brings it up until Yu confronts her about in Episode 12, resulting in Ayumu lashing out at Yu in an emotional outburst when her anxieties got the better of her. The following day, Ayumu is immediately regretful for the things she said, and like the game, is too ashamed to face Yu to properly apologize to her despite wanting to until Setsuna gives her the encouragement she needs to do so.
* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: Dressing up as a rabbit and pretending to be one was something she used to do regularly as a child, but she now regards it as an InUniverse OldShame. However, Yu finds it adorable and frequently pesters her to do it, much to her embarrassment.
* {{Otaku}}: In the Famitsu {{Yonkoma}} she likes videogames, in particular ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''. [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d29i9npukae_nom_0.jpg She also goes into a particularly funny diatribe against a game she was chosen to review.]]
* PinkMeansFeminine: Ayumu is a very feminine girl and she has light pink as her image color, which makes her costumes mostly pink. She even admits to liking cute pink clothes in the anime.
* ProneToTears: Ayumu is one of the most emotional characters in the franchise. She goes into an emotional outburst in Chapter 15 of ''ALL STARS'' when faced with the protagonist [[TookALevelInJerkass taking a level in jerkass]], [[spoiler: and also gets teary-eyed when confessing to Yu in episode 1 of the anime]]. Yu even half-jokingly mentions that she finds this emotional side of Ayumu's to be one of her biggest, and cutest, charm points, much to Ayumu's protests.
* PunnyName: The name of her first solo, "Yume e no Ippo", doubles as AlternateCharacterReading trickery with the kanji in Ayumu's name.
* SatelliteCharacter: The anime first builds up, then deconstructs this notion with respect to Ayumu being this to Yu. To wit, Ayumu initially structured her dream of being a school idol around gaining Yu's attention, and is also shown to be emotionally dependent on gaining Yu's approval. As the season progresses, Ayumu is shown to grow increasingly despondent as Yu's time and attention is spent on the other members of the club. This eventually culminates in her delivering a desperate AnguishedDeclarationOfLove to Yu at the end of Episode 11, when she thinks that she might lose Yu as a friend. She ultimately grows out of this in Episode 12, upon discovering that she has schoolmates who are fans of hers, and that she could be an idol that appeals to them, in addition to Yu.
* SecondYearProtagonist: The closest to a standard protagonist in the game, and in the anime alongside Yu. She gets a lot of focus, with the storyline showcasing her friendship with Yu, and her CharacterDevelopment from a low self-esteem, clingy girl, into a proper school idol with a dream of her own and that doesn't rely on others to shine. She also currently has the most centers through Nijigaku's group songs. The anime makes her stand on the background while the rest of the girls develop, but this hits back on full force by the end of Season 1, with Ayumu getting the bulk of attention through a 3-episode mini-arc, and culminates her development by getting a new song.
* SecretlySelfish: She primarily became a school idol just to impress and get the attention of the protagonist/Yu in both the game and the anime, not out of genuine interest in becoming one, at least initially, especially in ''ALL STARS''.
* SelfDeprecation: Considers her looks "ordinary", thinks she can't dance or sing as well as other school idols, and is oblivious to her own talents.
* ShesGotLegs: The UR card [[https://i.imgur.com/pZ590d9.jpg China Maid Ayumu]] is very popular in the fandom.
* StepfordSmiler: Throughout Episode 11, it's clear that [[spoiler:Ayumu is burying her distress underneath her typical positive attitude, but none of the other girls really notice that anything's wrong. It's not until she confronts Yu at the end of the episode that she is no longer able to hide her feelings anymore and takes drastic measures.]]
* TaremeEyes: Indicative of her soft and kind personality, contrasting with the more upbeat Yu's TsurimeEyes.
* TextileWorkIsFeminine: Knitting is one of her hobbies.
* UnknownRival: Setsuna is completely oblivious to Ayumu's envy of her and her growing closeness to Yu in the anime, with Ayumu fearing that Setsuna may one day replace her as the person that's most important to Yu.
* UnusualPetsForUnusualPeople: In early Yonkomas, Ayumu had a pet snake named Sasuke.

[[folder:Shizuku Osaka]]
[[quoteright:236:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_shizuku.png]]
[[caption-width-right:236:The [[SempaiKohai Junior]] School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Light Blue
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' April 3 (Aries)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' A
-->'''Height:''' 157cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B80/W58/H83
-->'''Hobby:''' Going to the theater
-->'''Symbol:''' Raindrops
-->'''Voiced by:''' Kaori Maeda

One of the five original members of the School Idol Club. Originally from Seiran High, Shizuku transferred to Nijigasaki to participate in the school's School Idol Club. She is a level-headed honor student and considered a traditional Japanese beauty. Due to her responsible nature, Shizuku is also inclined to taking on too much responsibility for herself.\\\

Apart from her membership in the School Idol Club, she is also part of the Theater Club.

* AdaptationExpansion: While the game does talk about her BeYourself message as part of her Bond Story, it's explored with very little depth and it doesn't really tie into her character at all, as it's not part of the main story and thus it has no effect on her development or actions. The anime's interpretation of her reworks this element of her character to be her main source of angst and ties her backstory into it, in the process giving her significantly more depth.
* AffectionateNickname: Kasumi calls her "Shizuko".
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: A downplayed example. In episode 8 of the anime, Shizuku tells Kasumi that as a child, she liked old movies and novels, but would occasionally get weird looks from her classmates because of it. This, combined with a deep-seated fear of anyone seeing her as some weird girl and hating her, causes her to go into acting, so she can pretend to be anyone who's not her true self so everyone can like her. She's never actually shown being shunned in any way, but she's afraid this will happen if people see that she's not their so-called "ideal heroine."
* AscendedExtra: Shizuku was originally an "N" card girl from the mobile game, before being selected to become a full-fledged character in the franchise.
* BeYourself: A big part of her character development in her focus episode in Episode 8 of the anime has her learn to accept herself as she is instead of always putting up a mask of being "everyone's ideal heroine".
* CharacterDevelopment: Notable for having a significantly different course of character growth depending on if you're playing the game or watching the show, although they do touch on similar topics.
** In the game, her Bond Story focuses on her love of acting and her desire to portray the kind of school idol that people would like to see. Later episodes have her embracing her passion while allowing herself to open up and not be afraid of showing a bit of her true self to her fans to create a unique style of multi-faceted school idol.
** In the anime, [[ADayInTheLimelight her episode]] explores her love of acting as a way to be seen as the type of girl that people would like and lock away her true self because she feared being disliked by others. Her development thus has her realizing that no matter what people think of her, being yourself is a good thing and she shouldn't bury her feelings and desires because of her own insecurities.
* ClosetGeek: She has had an affinity for old movies and books since she was young. However, as the only one who was interested in such a thing, she was afraid that people would hate her for being strange, which compelled her to take up acting so that she could appear as the kind of girl that people would like.
* CoverVersion: Covers Rina's "Doki Pipo ☆ Emotion" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* DeadpanSnarker: Turns into one when dealing with Kasumi.
* DualityMotif: The outfit Shizuku wears for "Solitude Rain" is part white, part black, and part gray, representing her decision to reject neither her true self nor her "mask" and combine the best elements of both to become someone who is truly "herself".
* EarlyInstallmentCharacterDesignDifference: Shizuku has the distinction of being the very first card in ''SIF'', and it definitely shows, with her first N card having an art style more in line with mid-2000's anime. Later N cards gave her progressively rounder and fuller features and more detailed shading, and by the time she got her ''Perfect Dream Project'' card her design was actually quite close to the official ''Love Live!'' artwork.
* FakeDefector: At the end of Chapter 20 of ''ALL STARS'', she decides to leave the School Idol Club and join Lanzhu's School Idol Association, in order to discern for herself what the differences in the approaches between the two clubs are. However, she privately promises the protagonist that she would return to the Club after she discovers this difference and gets stronger. The fact that she kept this promise in the following chapter makes her actions more in line with this trope, as opposed to being a full-fledged FaceHeelTurn.
* GenreShift: Most of her songs play off the graceful aspect of her character, but her anime solo, "Solitude Rain", plays the pop rock card with a faster tempo and prominent electric guitar.
* GracefulLoser: Congratulates You and Hanamaru for winning the water athletics race during the "Great Battle on the High Seas" event.
* HeroesLoveDogs: She has a pet dog named "Ophelia".
* InnocentBlueEyes: Fitting, considering that Shizuku looks very innocent and adorable on [[http://i.schoolido.lu/cards/721idolizedShizuku.png most]] [[http://i.schoolido.lu/cards/188idolizedShizuku.png of]] [[http://i.schoolido.lu/cards/188Shizuku.png her]] [[http://i.schoolido.lu/cards/721Shizuku.png cards]].
* IronicEcho: The anime has her quoting the title of her first solo, "Anata no Risou no Heroine" (meaning "your ideal heroine"), although the context of the line is ''much'' different and more dramatic than in the original song, as while the song's lyrics talk about Shizuku hoping to become "your ideal heroine", her CharacterDevelopment focuses on her trying to break out of this role and discovering it's okay to BeYourself.
* OutOfFocus: In a franchise where most characters shine, either through gimmicks, or simply heavy story focus, Shizuku stands out by doing practically ''nothing'' of note in the ''ALL STARS'' storyline. Compare the length of this folder with the rest of the main cast. Save for Kasumi, Shizuku is also [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy7tU2E2dxU barely acknowledged]] directly by the other characters in the anime.
* RapunzelHair: Goes down to her lower back.
* {{Tsundere}}: Often teased by her friend because of this.
* WelcomeBackTraitor: [[spoiler:At the end of Chapter 20 of ''ALL STARS'', she defects to Lanzhu's School Idol Association to explore the differences between it and the Club. This lasts until she returns to the Club at the end of the following chapter. The rest of the Club reacts this way to her return, except for Kasumi, who is mildly irked that she changed sides to begin with.]]
* YamatoNadeshiko: Her pitch describes her as a "traditional Japanese beauty", which fits with her long, dark hair. Personality-wise she's soft-spoken, but very level-headed, mature and responsible.

[[folder:Setsuna Yuki]]
[[quoteright:246:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_setsuna.png]]
[[caption-width-right:246:The [[TheSpook ????]] School Idol]]

-->'''Image Color:''' Scarlet
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Birthday:''' August 8 (Leo)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' O
-->'''Height:''' 154cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B83/W56/H81
-->'''Symbol:''' Microphone
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/TomoriKusunoki

One of the five original members of the School Idol Club. A school idol with a powerful and distinctive stage presence, Setsuna Yuki is sometimes described as a "legendary" school idol, whose activities are rumored to stretch as far as having the experience of a real IdolSinger. Her knowledge of and obsession with school idol culture is unparalleled, although despite her fame and status, her personal identity is shrouded in mystery. Prior to the disbandment of the School Idol Club pre-series, she was its president.

* TheAce: Described as a legendary idol, she leads the Nijigasaki Academy girls thanks to her experience in dancing, singing and everything idol-like. She is also frequently stated to have skills on par with that of a professional IdolSinger.
* ActuallyIAmHim: [[spoiler:Near the end of Chapter 1 of ''ALL STARS'', Nana introduces herself as the missing Setsuna Yuki to the reformed school idol club.]]
* AdaptationalJerkass:
** [[spoiler: As Student Council President Nana, she's much colder in the anime than how she was in the original game, where she wasn't as strict or icy even with the facade she deliberately put up before revealing her identity to everyone. She even gains ScaryShinyGlasses for most of episode 2 for it.]]
** Unlike in the game, [[spoiler: she, as Nana, outright disbands the original Nijigasaki School Idol Club in the anime without input from the other members after conflict erupted between them and shuts the club down herself. In ''ALL STARS'', she only ''threatened'' to do this, and she gave Kasumi and the protagonist a chance to save it by having them gather ten members for the club, which turned out to be a SecretTestOfCharacter of sorts from Setsuna herself.]] Though it's eventually subverted later on when she tells Yu [[spoiler:that she is not against the School Idol Club being reformed, so long as the five member requirement is reached. That said, Setsuna emphasized that she would not be a part of it]].
** While the situation that caused the original group to very nearly disband in the game is almost the same in the anime barring a few different details and is still something Setsuna holds herself responsible for in both versions, the conflict itself was never shown onscreen in ''ALL STARS''. The anime shows exactly what happened in a flashback: [[spoiler: Setsuna got too pushy with the other members when it came to her standards as a school idol and it resulted in Kasumi blowing up at her for being too forceful at them for it.]]
* AlliterativeName: [[spoiler:Her real name, '''N'''ana '''N'''akagawa.]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Episode 10 shows what can happen if she is sufficiently annoyed, with her lecturing the first and third years for goofing off during their training camp, and later tossing a pillow ''in her sleep'' to knock out Kasumi when the latter attempts to scare some of the other girls.
* CallingYourAttacks: During her call and response.
-->'''Setsuna:''' Setsuna Scarlet Storm!
* CharacterNameAlias: [[spoiler:According to Nana, the name "Setsuna Yuki" comes from two characters in her favorite light novel series.]]
* CharacterShilling: Characters will often comment on Setsuna being the best school idol in Nijigasaki High. Some students still hold this opinion even after Lanzhu arrived.
* ClarkKenting: [[spoiler:As Nana Nakagawa, she wears glasses and has her hair in braids.]]
* ClosetGeek: [[spoiler:She has to hide her otaku hobbies from her parents, which is the reason why she uses an alias when performing.]]
* CoverVersion: Covers Shioriko's "Ketsui no Hikari" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: Because Setsuna is TheAce of the club, some characters are motivated to one day catch up and be at her level.
* FamedInStory: Uniquely among idols in the ''Love Live!'' franchise, she already has this reputation prior to the start of her series, being known as a "legendary" school idol, at least in part due to her elusive nature. It also helps that she is legitmately TheAce in her own right and has skills on par with that of a professional IdolSinger.
* FanGirl: Her love for all things anime, manga, and light novels knows no bounds. [[spoiler:The stage name "Setsuna Yuki" itself]] comes from one of her favorite series, she manages to convince Karin and Shizuku to binge watch said series in her Bond Story, and in the anime she immediately launches into a hyperactive tangent the moment she discovers that Rina watches the same anime that she does.
* FashionableAsymmetry: Setsuna has a blue and red tie and wears one blue and one red stocking.
* {{Foil}}: [[spoiler:To Dia and Eli, highlighting how difficult it is being the Student Council President and a school idol.]]
* GenkiGirl: Downplayed. While she is normally a standard ProperLady type, she gets very excitable whenever something she is passionate about becomes the topic of discussion.
* GracefulLoser: On later chapters, [[spoiler:she feels that her loss to Shioriko might be good overall as Shioriko is doing a much better job as StudentCouncilPresident.]] It also frees up more time for her to devote to her idol activities.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: She casually lets slip that [[spoiler:Yu had been playing piano for a while and that she knew about it all this time]] to Ayumu in Episode 11, who didn't know anything about it beforehand, unwittingly feeding into Ayumu's already growing insecurities towards her relationship with Yu while further fanning the flames of Ayumu's jealousy of her and her budding closeness with Yu.
* JapanesePoliteness: While more hyperactive than most examples, how she speaks in Japanese is [[{{Keigo}} always consistently polite and formal]] in tone regardless of who she speaks with and she always addresses everyone, even her closest friends, with the "-san" honorific without exception.
* {{Keigo}}: Even when she's at her most energetic, her Japanese speech patterns are always polite, consistently using formal verbs (outside of monologue). [[spoiler:This reflects her true identity as an {{Ojou}} from a strict household.]]
* TheLeader: She was the president of Nijigasaki's School Idol Club in its original incarnation. After the club's reformation, she cedes this position to the protagonist, both so she could devote more time to being a school idol and having deemed her own leadership insufficient, as the club originally disbanded under her watch.
* LethalChef: She enjoys cooking, but nobody has ever told her how her food tastes. She has been told, though, that her food arrangement is [[CordonBleughChef "a bit too original"]]... Between her creations, there's a strange purple cake, a strange purple soup, and a poor attempt at chinese cooking. Reactions to their taste range from dubious concern (in the anime) to ''outright food poisoning'' (when Lanzhu tasted her "chinese" food).
* LimitedWardrobe: Unlike most characters in the franchise, who at least have a school uniform, Setsuna is almost permanently in an idol outfit. This plays into the in-universe rumor that she might not actually be a student, [[spoiler: though it turns out she ''does'' wear a uniform as her true identity, Nana Nakagawa.]] This is ironically flipped in the anime, where she's ''very rarely'' seen in her default iconic yellow idol outfit throughout the show and is instead seen wearing Nijigasaki's school uniform more along with other outfits.
* LivingADoubleLife: [[spoiler:As the disciplined student council president, Nana Nakagawa, and as the mysterious school idol, Setsuna Yuki.]]
* {{Meganekko}}: [[spoiler:Nana wears glasses, although it's not known if she actually needs them to correct her vision as she removes them when acting as Setsuna. The ''Rainbow Days'' Photo Essay short story series eventually confirms that she wears contacts whenever she acts as Setsuna, which means she really does need them for her eyesight.]]
* {{Motifs}}: Setsuna is strongly associated with crimson fire to compliment her "burning" passion for school idols, and many of her performances accordingly involve pyrotechnics. Her {{Catchphrase}} is even "Setsuna Scarlet Storm", a CallingYourAttacks variant. Her one performance that isn't completely on fire is her anime solo "DIVE!", which employs heavy use of ocean blues as a form of DualityMotif.
* MundaneWish: [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdEPjobX0AMjPXp?format=png&name=large A Nijiyon comic]] reveals that for her birthday, her wish is simply to watch her fellow club members perform live, with her in the front row cheering for them. This has led Tomori Kusunoki, Setsuna's voice actor, to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afrO1JbXUGM consider it her favorite Nijiyon comic]], as it highlighted that Setsuna loves everything about school idols rather than just enjoying being one.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In the anime, her attempts to impose a singular identity on the school idol club's members led to the original club's disbandment due to pushback from Kasumi, who resented her approach. This realization caused her to contemplate quitting being a school idol altogether.
* MyGreatestFailure: Setsuna is initially reluctant to rejoin the School Idol Club because she holds herself responsible for driving the other members away. However, the player and her friends quickly convince her that they won't repeat the same mistakes.
* MysteriousPast: Before joining Nijigasaki Academy School Idol Club, she's been doing idol stuff alone because of certain circumstances.
* ObliviousToHints: Setsuna is apparently quite ignorant about her friends' not-so-subtle suggestions about her being unable to cook properly.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat:
** [[spoiler:She wants the school idol club closed down despite the club having the required 5 members. In this case, it turns out to be subverted as she is already in the club as Setsuna Yuki, and she did this in order to test their resolve.]]
** [[spoiler:Played with in the anime, as while she personally disbands the club without the consent of the other members, she does so out of fear that her passion was hurting her friends, and she later tells Yu that she won't stop them from reestablishing the club without her (until Yu convinces her to rejoin, at least).]]
* OffhandBackhand: When Kasumi woke up in the night to prank the others in episode 10, Setsuna immediately sits up and hurls a pillow at Kasumi's face with enough force to knock Kasumi out and send her sprawling... ''while asleep''!
--> '''Ai:''' Whoa, she did that in her sleep...
* {{Ojou}}: [[spoiler:Nana is a standard ProperLady type.]]
* {{Otaku}}: Likes video games, anime and of course, her most powerful obsession is idols.
* OverlyNervousFlopSweat: During a meeting between the student council and school idol club in Episode 11, the student council vice president confesses to researching school idols and quickly becoming a fan of Setsuna, all while ''Nana is in the room presiding over the meeting''. While trying to keep a straight face over this revelation, Nana is seen visibly sweating.
* PaperThinDisguise: [[spoiler:Nana has the exact same eye color, face, hair color, ''and'' voice as Setsuna...]]
* PetTheDog: Despite trying to catch and remove Hanpen from the school's grounds, she changes her mind after learning that neither Rina nor Ai can take the cat home as a pet. As such, she exploits a [[LoopholeAbuse loophole]] to appoint Hanpen as the student council's official trekking officer, allowing the cat to stay at the school.
* RapunzelHair: Her hair goes down to her lower back.
* RedArmbandOfLeadership: [[spoiler:Nana wears one as the Student Council President.]]
* RepetitiveName: [[spoiler:Her real name, '''Nana''' '''Na'''kagawa, is one.]]
* TheRunaway: In her Bond Story, [[spoiler:Setsuna becomes afraid of confronting her parents after she loses the student council president position to Shioriko, and stops going home for a few days. She starts bunking with a few of the other members as a result, but they quickly realize that she's not the best roommate, so the cast convinces her to confront her parents and hope they understand.]]
* SecretIdentity: [[spoiler:When in school, she's ClarkKenting and goes by her real name, Nana Nakagawa. Setsuna Yuki is her stage name hence her ambiguous background.]]
* TheSpook: Unlike any of the other characters in the franchise, Setsuna's information is relatively secret; in her character pitch, her idol type is explicitly never revealed, and in-universe, there's a rumor going around saying that no one has actually seen her attend school. [[spoiler: This is because she's actually the alias of StudentCouncilPresident Nana Nakagawa.]]
* SpotlightStealingSquad: While each of the girls get their time in the spotlight, Setsuna stands out as getting a fair bit more attention in the main story compared to the other characters, [[spoiler: as her SecretIdentity and struggle to balance her StudentCouncilPresident obligations and her life's passion is given focus in a few chapters.]]
* StageNames: [[spoiler:"Setsuna Yuki" is her stage name. After TheReveal, she is almost exclusively referred to as such by the club members as opposed to using her real name.]]
* StudentCouncilPresident: [[spoiler:Of Nijigasaki High School until Chapter 9 in SIFAS. She's still one in the anime continuity.]]
* ThatManIsDead: She states this of her Setsuna identity at the start of Episode 3, after deciding to quit being an idol. Fortunately, it doesn't last.
* TsurimeEyes: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig zagged]].
** [[spoiler:Played straight when acting as the Student Council President as it highlights her serious no-nonsense personality.]]
** Downplayed as Setsuna due to her rather dorky personality.
* TwoAliasesOneCharacter: [[spoiler:Nana Nakagawa and Setsuna Yuki are the same person.]]
* VocalDissonance: Despite her GenkiGirl appearance and attitude, as well as being on the short side (she's actually the same height as Nico), Setsuna has a distinctly dark and powerful singing voice not unlike Yoshiko's.
* WalkingSpoiler: Talking about Setsuna is incredibly hard [[spoiler: without revealing the fact that she's actually Nana Nakagawa. [[LateArrivalSpoiler Hell, the merchandise doesn't even bother with hiding the fact for anime-only viewers.]]]]

![=QU4RTZ=]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sing_26_smile2121.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[=QU4RTZ=]'s first single, "Sing & Smile!!"]]

The "Pure" subunit, a quartet comprising Kasumi Nakasu, Emma Verde, Rina Tennouji, and Kanata Konoe. Their "pure" songs combine elements of both traditional and modern musical styles to help them stand out from lily white and AZALEA. The four-vocal ensemble gives them a wide range and harmony unique from other subunits.

* BreakingOldTrends: They're the first "Pure" subunit in the franchise whose name isn't [[FloralThemeNaming related to flowers]] in some way.
* LeetLingo: The letter "A" in "quartz" is replaced with a "4". Given that Rina is a member of this subunit, this is hardly surprising.
* PairTheSpares: The subunit's composition is largely the result of most fans voting for whoever they wanted to be in the duo and trio subunits, with the quartet mostly being the end result of whoever ''didn't'' get into said duo and trio. That said, fans agree that the quartet's members play off each other well.
----

[[folder:Kasumi Nakasu]]
[[quoteright:198:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_kasumi.png]]
[[caption-width-right:198:The Black-hearted School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Pastel Yellow
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' January 23 (Aquarius)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' B
-->'''Height:''' 155cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B76/W55/H79
-->'''Symbol:''' Crown
-->'''Voiced by:''' Mayu Sagara
\\\
One of the five original members of the School Idol Club. It has always been her dream to become a school idol, so her love for school idols is unrivaled. With the goal to dominate and become number one, she's a pretty sore loser when she comes anything other than first place, even to the point of sabotage or cheating.
----
* ACupAngst: She is envious of Karin's bust when they met for the first time in Chapter 1 of ''ALL STARS''.
* AdaptationalJerkass: In the game, Kasumi tries to act like TheFakeCutie due to thinking that's how school idols are "supposed" to be, but is otherwise a kind-hearted girl whose attempts at "belittling" the others amounts to harmless acts of PokeThePoodle. This is completely absent in the anime, where instead she is a genuinely bratty and self-absorbed JerkWithAHeartOfGold who is motivated heavily by resentment towards the original club being dissolved. Notably, her EstablishingCharacterMoment in the anime is her breaking into the student council room to steal the plaque for the School Idol Club, something her game counterpart would've never done (least of all because the breakup was never shown to be as bad as it was in the anime).
* AttentionWhore: She constantly wants to be seen as the cutest school idol and the protagonist's attention although she ends up being embarrassed when the protagonist actually pays attention to her.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The protagonist's/Yu's kind and supportive nature and the amount of help and genuine encouragement she gives Kasumi all the time has made Kasumi very fond of her as well as extremely loyal to her.
* BookDumb:
** Chapter 10 reveals that she has poor grades. At the end of the chapter, she and Nico are the ones who have gotten the lowest scores in their final tests among the 3 groups, [[AchievementsInIgnorance both getting crowned "Queen Dunce" by Ai at the end.]]
** In Episode 10, she gets 22 points out of 100 on her 1st term exams.
* ButtMonkey: Throughout the entire franchise. The various {{Yonkoma}} have multiple pranks initiated by her eventually backfire, ''ALL STARS'' has her crowned as "Queen Dunce" after getting the lowest scores in her final tests, and in the anime she has noticeably funnier and outlandish reactions, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kasumiangry.png particularly when compared to the rest of the main cast.]]
* {{Catchphrase}}: " Kasumi desu! "[[note]]" It's Kasumi! "[[/note]](with an optional " 'Kasukasu' janakute/jannai! "[[note]]" not 'Kasukasu'! "[[/note]] at the end), whenever other people call her "Kasukasu".
* ClingyJealousGirl: She expresses jealousy whenever someone else gets to be affectionate towards the protagonist:
** She got a little pouty when she first met Ayumu in the game and learned that she was the protagonist's dearest childhood friend.
** In the anime, she wasn't all too pleased with [[spoiler: Yu taking a little ''too'' long to cling to Setsuna after the former suddenly hugs her.]]
* ClubStub: At the start of both the anime and ''ALL STARS'', she was the only remaining active member of the School Idol Club after it was initially disbanded.
* CoverVersion: Covers Setsuna's "CHASE!" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Despite her ButtMonkey status, according to Ai in Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'', she actually ranks among the highest in popularity among the members of the School Idol Club.
* EmbarrassingNickname: Hates being called "Kasukasu". [[note]]This nickname comes from the Japanese phrase "kasukasu" (かすかす), used to describe food as bland or tasteless.[[/note]]
* {{Expy}}: Curiously, Kasumi has a very similar character type as Nico, the main difference being that Kasumi is genuinely good-natured and has significantly less ego. Doubles as ExpyCoexistence in the game, as the two interact occasionally and even competed at one point. Predictably, they aren't particularly fond of each other. Similarly, both characters were the only remaining members of their respective schools' School Idol Clubs prior to said clubs being revitalized.
* TheFakeCutie:
** What she wants you to think of her, given that she thinks idol rivals are supposed to be mean and cruel with each other.
** She plays this straighter in the anime, as she's utterly obsessed with cuteness and being the cutest school idol ever despite being more of a jerk when she isn't putting on an act.
* FastballSpecial: In Episode 2 of the anime, in order to get into the Student Council's office to retrieve the School Idol Club's nameplate, Kasumi throws Hanpen at Setsuna's head to distract her.
* {{Foil}}: In some ways, Kasumi being an {{Expy}} of Nico helps contrast the two in certain ways. They both wound up being the last member of their respective School Idol Clubs due to past grievances, have a cute facade that they use to win the hearts of the audiences, and have AttentionWhore tendencies. However, while Nico uses her cute facade to hide her abrasive JerkWithAHeartOfGold attitude, Kasumi pretends to be a jerk with a cute facade in front of the other girls but is actually sweet and caring.
* FoodAsBribe: Uses homemade koppe-pan this way multiple times through the anime, either as a way to convince others to do what she wants, or as encouragement to help her/leave her alone.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Subverted for a gag in Episode 12. Kasumi starts fearing she has become this when friends and fans of the other girls come to the clubroom to call them one by one, leaving her alone. Then a single girl appears calling for her.
* {{Hammerspace}}: [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kasumihammerspace.jpg She somehow produces a koppe-pan out of Shizuku's backside in episode 3.]][[note]]Notice Shizuku isn't holding a backpack or anything, and Kasumi's hands were empty in the preceding shots.[[/note]]
* ImageSong: She has the unique distinction of being the first girl in the franchise to have a solo as an A-side ''and'' have an MV, the song "Muteki-kyuu*Believer" (by Music/Deco27).
* InSeriesNickname: She encourages others to address her as "Kasumin". However, more often than not, they instead refer to her as "[[EmbarrassingNickname Kasukasu]]", much to her annoyance.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Describes herself like a mischievous and cruel idol archetype. She's actually caring and sweet with the rest of the Nijigasaki girls and is especially affectionate towards the protagonist.
* {{Kawaiiko}}: Her characterisation revolves around striving to be the cutest school idol of all.
* MotorMouth: Can keep up with Nico during their rap battle in Chapter 6 of ''ALL STARS''.
* MyDadCanBeatUpYourDad: Together with Ayumu, she gets into a comical argument with both Riko and Umi regarding which of the three groups' leaders was the best, and since Kasumi is very fond of the protagonist, she's quick to declare the Player Character as #1 over both Honoka and Chika.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Kasumi hits upon this realization in Episode 2 after she forces Ayumu to adopt her idea of a "cute" image for the latter's idol introductory video. To wit, Kasumi's behavior reminded her of the way Setsuna imposed her own ideals of what it means to be an idol on her and the other members of the previous school idol club.
* NiceHat: She wears a beret with several of her idol outfits.
* TheNicknamer: Kasumi gives out nicknames to her fellow first-years; "Shizuko" for Shizuku, "Rinako" for Rina, and "Shioko" for Shioriko.
* NonUniformUniform: She wears a white sweater underneath her jacket with her winter uniform.
* PokeThePoodle: What her brand of "evil plans" usually amounts to.
* ThePrankster: Kasumi really enjoys to play pranks at other members. Too bad ''all'' of them end up backfiring. She makes a special exception for the protagonist though, and never once tries to prank her because of how much she likes her.
* RepetitiveName: In Japanese order, her name is Na''kasu'' ''Kasu''mi. This is likely why she also has the EmbarrassingNickname of "Kasukasu".
* SupremeChef: Is apparently a very good cook, as she makes her own koppe-pan during her spare time.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Refers to herself as "Kasumin".
* ThisIsUnforgivable: She regards defecting from the school idol club to join Lanzhu's club as this, and continues to regard the members who did so with hostility, despite this view not being shared by the other members. Lanzhu's dismissive and rude attitude towards the protagonist also likely plays a role in Kasumi adopting this mentality.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Has a massive love for bread, particularly koppe-pan. Her character pitch reveals she places it inside other idol's shoes as sabotage, the "Muteki-kyuu*Believer" PV has her concocting a new rainbow koppe-pan for a welcome party to new students, and through the anime she uses koppe-pan either as a bribe, or as "encouragement" for people to do what she wants.
* UndyingLoyalty: To her favorite senpai, the protagonist/Yu Takasaki. She would always vie for the protagonist's attention and ''will not'' take any kind of insult towards the protagonist lying down.
* YouAreWhatYouHate: She comes to this realization in Episode 2 of the anime, after she tries to force Ayumu to adopt a "cute image" for her introductory PV. This winds up reminding her of how the original school idol club disbanded because Setsuna tried to force a "passionate image" on the other members and Kasumi pushed back against her for it.

[[folder:Kanata Konoe]]
[[quoteright:239:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_kanata.png]]
[[caption-width-right:239:The Spoiled Big Sister School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Violet[[note]]Sumire-iro[[/note]]
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Birthday:''' December 16 (Sagittarius)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' O
-->'''Height:''' 158cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B85/W60/H86
-->'''Hobby:''' Playing with her little sister
-->'''Symbol:''' Sheep
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/AkariKitou
\\\
One of the five original members of Nijigasaki's School Idol Club. Originally from Shinonome Academy, she transferred to Nijigasaki to join the Club's activities prior to the original members parting ways. Though she always seems sleepy, Kanata is deeply passionate about looking after her younger sister Haruka and sleeping. She sometimes dozes off when people are talking to her.\\\

She's a member of both the Health Committee and the School Idol Club.
----
* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Arguably the most drastic out of the original "N" card girls. Originally depicted as a BrilliantButLazy {{Sleepyhead}} who even skipped classes with the excuse to sleep, the anime portrays her as a constantly exhausted hard worker with narcolepsy. Her relationship with her sister is also far more emotionally complicated.
* AffectionateNickname: Ai calls her "Kana-chan".
* AlliterativeName: '''K'''anata '''K'''onoe.
* AllWorkVsAllPlay: The Play to her sister Haruka's Work.
* AscendedExtra: Kanata started out as an "N" card girl in the mobile game, but was selected to become a full-fledged character in the franchise.
* BigSisterInstinct: She works herself to the bone for Haruka's sake. Because their mother's busy work schedule keeps her from coming home to take care of them, Kanata essentially serves as Haruka's second mother at home and always makes sure to attend to her younger sister's needs. This eventually veers into {{Deconstruction}} territory, as her perception that she needs to care for Haruka drives her to work herself to death despite Haruka being capable of taking care of herself, and her realization that she doesn't need to protect her younger sister so much anymore plays heavily into her CharacterDevelopment.
* BrilliantButLazy:
** Her original depiction in ''School idol festival'' is the only straight use of this trope for her, as Haruka admits that she can do anything she puts her mind to but rarely does so. Both her ''ALL STARS'' and anime appearances subvert it to differing degrees.
** Her laziness is [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] in the anime, as she's anything ''but'' lazy. Having to tirelessly do schoolwork, housework, part-time work, and school idol activities all at once will exhaust anyone to the point of randomly falling asleep like her.
* CerebusRetcon: In both ''School Idol Festival'' and ''ALL STARS'', Kanata's sleepiness is portrayed as a quirk of hers and is always played for laughs, with only her Bond Stories in ''ALL STARS'' confirming that it's because she has to pull out all-nighters to keep her scholarship in Nijigasaki, and even then, this information is still mostly inconsequential to her. The anime plays the reasons for her sleepiness more seriously, as it's a consequence of her having to juggle schoolwork, school idol club activities, her part-time job, and taking care of Haruka 24/7 all at once that it's exhausting her to the point of randomly falling asleep without warning, a fact that greatly worries Haruka when she finds out about it firsthand.
* CoolBigSis: Only in front of her sister.
* CoverVersion: Covers Emma's "Evergreen" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* CuddleBug: Mostly towards her sister, though she cuddles Kasumi in episode 3 of the anime as well.
* EarlyInstallmentCharacterDesignDifference: Her original 2013-era N Cards in ''SIF'' have her look noticeably more mature than her current design (with a tad bit of OffModel to boot).
* FamilyThemeNaming: "Haruka kanata" means "faraway". During Kanata's song in episode 7 of the anime, "Butterfly" (which is dedicated to Haruka), she even namedrops the phrase.
* GenreShift: While most of her songs tend towards slower, downbeat ballad-like themes, her anime insert solo "Butterfly" takes a crack at an electronic pop song.
* HiddenDepths: She studies until late at night to keep her scholarship. It's the reason why she's a {{Sleepyhead}}. The anime takes this further, as it's revealed that not only is she sleepy because of schoolwork, but also from having to juggle that with school idol activities, her part-time job, ''and'' housework.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: A confrontation between Kanata and Haruka has the former tell her little sister not to worry about sharing the burden of their personal responsibilities, and that she would work ''even harder'' so Haruka doesn't have to be concerned. As Kanata working herself to the bone was the reason for this confrantation in the first place, Haruka snaps at her and storms off.
* LapPillow: Emma's thighs are her favorite pillow.
* LazyBum: Slacks off whenever she can and ditches class with the excuse that she needs to go help at the nurse's office. This is [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] in the anime, where it's shown that her sleepy demeanor is the result of her juggling a lot of responsibilities at once.
* {{Leitmotif}}: Of a sort; Kanata is associated with the sounds of a clock, which is incorporated into the background music of all of her songs. Even "Butterfly", which is otherwise drastically different from her other solos, features the winding of a clock as part of the music.
* NonUniformUniform: She wears a red sweater under her jacket, and her ribbon is tied rather sloppily. In the summer, she wears a yellow cardigan instead.
* PromotionToParent: Downplayed in the anime. Although the Konoe sisters' mother is still present, she is at work extremely often and is rarely ever at home long enough to care for her two daughters. This essentially means that Kanata takes up the role of caring for Haruka most of the time, which she attempts to do by taking on a part-time job and housework on top of her studies and later the School Idol Club. This is a ''huge'' workload for a high-school student and the overwork contributes to her constant sleepiness.
* RapunzelHair: Also goes down to her lower back like Setsuna and Shizuku.
* ScholarshipStudent: The only known member of the club to attend Nijigasaki High with a scholarship.
* SiblingYinYang: In ''SIF'', Kanata is lazy and laidback while Haruka is active and hardworking. Averted in ''ALL STARS'', which justifies it as late-night studying, and even moreso in the anime where Kanata works herself practically to the bone on a regular basis.
* {{Sleepyhead}}: She is usually of a sleepy demeanor and speaks with a drowsy, lulling voice. Her Bond Story reveals that she's a bit of a night owl and uses her night hours to study, as she needs to maintain good grades to keep her scholarship. The constant sleep deprivation results in her napping often during the day. In the anime, it's because she has to balance studying and club activities with her part-time job and housework.
* SupremeChef: Kanata is a very good cook and her dishes are often well-received.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Refers to herself as "Kanata-chan".
* UnkemptBeauty: It's implied that she's something of a natural beauty, since despite being sleep deprived almost all the time it doesn't get in the way of her appearance.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Emma Verde]]
[[quoteright:335:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_emma.png]]
[[caption-width-right:335:The Pure School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Light Green
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Birthday:''' February 5 (Aquarius)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' O
-->'''Height:''' 166cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B92/W61/H88
-->'''Hobby:''' Quilting
-->'''Symbol:''' Bread
-->'''Voiced by:''' Maria Sashide
\\\
One of the five original members of the School Idol Club. Switzerland born and raised, she came to Japan as a student of Y.G. International Academy before transferring to Nijigasaki to join the School Idol Club program. She used an Italian word "buono" (meaning "good") when introducing herself, which indicates that she is from the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland.\\\

Emma is Karin's roommate at the Nijigasaki Academy dorms.
----
* AdaptationalBackstoryChange: In the game, Emma is a transfer student from another school in Japan who came to Nijigasaki due to interest in its school idol club. However, in the anime, Emma immediately enrolled in Nijigasaki as soon as she arrived in Japan, with no mention of being a transfer student whatsoever.
* AscendedExtra: Emma was originally an "N" card girl from the mobile game, but selected to become a full-fledged member of the franchise and given a full name.
* BigEater: Similar to Kasumi, Emma loves her bread. During an eating competition against Hanayo, she counters Hanayo scarfing down bowls of rice by ordering plates and plates of bread and manages to even the score.
* BuxomIsBetter: Has an even larger bust than Nozomi. Downplayed in the anime, where her chest is made significantly smaller and more realistic, though her chest is still large compared to the other girls.
* CoolBigSis: Her Bond Story focuses on this trait, as the other members repeatedly note that Emma has is very friendly to other people and has a calming aura about her, which she attempts to apply to her school idol technique. It helps that she is an actual big sister to ''eight'' younger siblings back home in Switzerland.
* CoverVersion: Covers Ayumu's "Yume e no Ippo" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* DependingOnTheArtist: Emma's freckles are drawn differently depending on the medium; her freckles are above her nose in ''ALL STARS'' and related illustrations, while in the anime she's drawn with opposite freckles on her cheeks.
* EarlyInstallmentCharacterDesignDifference: In addition to the drastically different artstyle that the N girls have, Emma's earliest cards played up her massive bust for {{Fanservice}} purposes, with some of her cards edging into OffModel territory to show it off. While she is definitely still busty in ''Nijigasaki'' material, she doesn't get used for fanservice nearly as much (thanks to Karin, at least).
* FashionModel: She occasionally works as a model for the Natsukawa Photography Studio.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: She loves animals of all kinds, from the fluffy to the scaly.
* GorgeousGaijin: She's the only non-Japanese member of Nijigasaki's school idol club, and she has the largest bust by quite a bit.
* GratuitousItalian: Emma uses it similarly to Mari in the English dub of ''Sunshine!!'', although Emma being Switzerland-born implies that she uses a specific dialect of the language known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Italian Swiss Italian]].
* ImageSong: Played with with her third solo, "Aion no Uta", which is [[spoiler:not actually her song, but is the song that made her fall in love with school idols and move to Japan to become one. It turns out that the song has been passed down from the original school idol who sang it to her ''kouhai'', Mai Natsukawa, and in Episode 21 of Emma's Bond Story Mai officially passes it down to Emma during her final concert.]]
* LapPillow: Is fond of giving these.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: She has ''eight'' younger siblings.
* MixedAncestry: She casually reveals that she's actually part Italian during Mari's birthday. Considering that she's Swiss and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_immigration_to_Switzerland Italians are the largest expatriate group in Switzerland]], this isn't too surprising.
--> '''Emma''': Happy Birthday, Mari! Isn't your dad Italian-American? I feel like we're similar, since I'm part Italian, too.
* NatureLover: As someone who grew up in Switzerland, she has always been fascinated with forests and nature.
* NoHeroToHisValet: As Karin's roommate, she is privy to details about Karin that are not so flattering and undermine the cool and mature image that Karin tries to project. She also has a tendency of sharing such details with others, as seen in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-LRmz5ljfU&feature=youtu.be&t=37 #36]] and [[https://youtu.be/d-gd8GacQgk?t=55 #38]] of Nijiyon's third season, much to Karin's chagrin.
* OnlyFriend: Initially to Karin in the anime, prior to Karin joining the school idol club herself after some encouragement from Emma.
* OnlyOneName: Subverted. She was originally known only as Emma before her full name was revealed in September 2017 during the promotional intros for what became the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club.
* PhenotypeStereotype: While the art style helps fit in as best as possible with the other girls, Emma sports numerous physical traits that are typically associated with "Western" body types in anime and thus sticks out a bit when compared to the all-Japanese cast who have more equal figures.
* SatelliteCharacter: Weirdly enough, [[ADayInTheLimelight her episode]] in the anime revolves more around her relationship with Karin rather than focusing on Emma herself.
* SiblingTeam: In a sense. Live performances of Emma's song "Koe Tsunagou yo" have her voice actress, Maria Sashide, be accompanied by six young girls as backup dancers, who are ostensibly meant to represent Emma's many younger siblings.
* ThisIsUnforgivable: Like Kasumi, Emma considers Karin's betrayal to Lanzhu's Association and her dismissal of their friendship to be unforgivable. She cuts off all contact with Karin ever since she joined the Association.
* TokenMinority: She's Swiss, and unlike [[Anime/LoveLive Eli]] and [[Anime/LoveLiveSunshine Mari]] she doesn't have any Japanese heritage, being the only non-Japanese member of the group.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: She loves bread, especially the crusts.
* TranquilFury: When she confronts Karin after she defects to Lanzhu's Association, she delivers her ArmorPiercingQuestion to Karin in a chillingly calm voice that radiates her anger over the betrayal of her best friend.
* UnusualPetsForUnusualPeople: Emma grew up in a ranch and has a pet goat named "Neve".
* WasItReallyWorthIt: She asks this of Karin when she encounters the latter for the first time since Karin's defection to the School Idol Association, questioning if switching sides was worth it, since the move entailed Karin putting herself under Lanzhu's thumb as a ''backup dancer'' without any guarantee that she would even be allowed to perform as a center in the future.
* YouthfulFreckles: Inverted; she has visible freckles, but she's actually the oldest of the group, being a third-year and having an earlier birthday than Karin and Kanata.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rina Tennoji]]
[[quoteright:179:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_rina.png]]
[[caption-width-right:179:The Face-hiding School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Paper White
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' November 13 (Scorpio)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' B
-->'''Height:''' 149cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B71/W52/H75
-->'''Symbol:''' Wi-fi with cat ears (?)
-->'''Voiced by:''' Chiemi Tanaka
\\\
An eccentric first year that was invited to become a school idol by Ayumu's friend. Rina is a shy girl who has difficulty showing emotions on her face. She hides her face, usually with a notebook she calls her "Rina-chan Board" that she uses to draw her facial expressions on; she switches to a digital pixel mask when performing. She is energetic only when she has the "Rina-chan Board" on, and is antisocial otherwise, which is why she never takes it off.
----
* AdaptationDeviation: In the anime, Rina's main pairing is with Ai. In the game, Rina isn't paired with anyone in particular until Season 2, where she gets paired with [[spoiler:Mia]].
* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Rina's personality focus is essentially switched in the anime, likely for the purpose of PragmaticAdaptation. In the game, she hides her face constantly and is almost always in her GenkiGirl persona, not even revealing what she looks like under it until well into her bond story. The anime instead has her mainly using her notebook only when she needs to express herself, she has her face fully exposed otherwise and is mainly depicted as a ShrinkingViolet struggling with her inability to display emotions.
* AffectionateNickname: Ai calls her "Rina-rii" while Kasumi calls her "Rinako".
* AluminumChristmasTrees: Despite the use of the Board being definitely non-standard, her inability to display emotion is a real condition called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_affect_display reduced affect display.]]
* CatchPhrase: [[MadLibsCatchPhrase "Rina-chan Board: 'X'"]], where "X" is a descriptor emotion matching the face on her Rina-chan Board.
* CommonalityConnection: Rina finding small things that she has in common with Mia is the basis of the bond that they form in Chapter 22 of ''ALL STARS''.
* CoolMask: The "Auto Emoticonverter Rina-chan Board", named in Rina's bond episode 5, is a digital pixel mask specially made for performances. It was first revealed in artwork on [[https://lovelive-as.bushimo.jp/member/rina/ her character page]].
* CoverVersion: Covers Kanata's "Nemureru Mori ni Ikitai na" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: [[spoiler:She used to be able to show her emotions but since her parents are not there for her most of the time due to work, she tried to be strong and act like nothing was wrong. Eventually, she lost the ability to show her emotions.]]
* DramaticUnmask:
** She finally reveals her face to the protagonist in Episode 12 of her bond story. [[spoiler: She's just a [[https://i.imgur.com/rgjVBKA.jpg normal girl with yellow eyes]].]]
** It also happens for the first time in Nijiyon, namely in [[https://youtu.be/mubeTUMi5x4?t=56 Season 3 #60]], when she removes her Rina-chan Board to thank her fans by showing them her face.
* DullSurprise: An invoked case in the anime, as due to being unable to convey emotions visually and vocally, her face is stuck in a permanently non-plussed expression regardless of her actual feelings and her speaking voice inflects very little, almost to the point of being monotone.
* EmotionlessGirl: Rina lacks the ability to express emotions well, both through facial expression and voice. That isn't to say that she ''actually'' lacks emotions, but she has an easier time expressing them with the use of her Board.
* ExpressiveMask:
** Her digital pixel board somehow manages to change expressions in less than a second, as if reading her actual emotions. The mask's mouth also moves along with hers when she sings.
** Bizarrely, in the "Mirai Harmony" PV the Rina-chan Board is seen ''changing on its own'' when Rina stumbles despite otherwise being a normal notebook.
** Episode 10 of the anime has her tape a single sheet of paper on her head while trying a BedsheetGhost prank. After Ai accidentally trips Rina, who falls to the floor, the drawn expression on the single paper changes twice on its own.
* TheFaceless: Always hides her face behind doodles of facial expressions on her notebook or behind a CoolMask when she's performing. When she isn't holding something in front of her face, she'll be facing away from the camera so the audience won't see what she looks like. Averted in the anime where (more realistically) she just doesn't wear the Rina-chan Board unless needed.
* GadgeteerGenius: Easily the most tech-savvy character in the franchise. The "Tokimeki RUNNERS" MV has her building and using a drone, the digital version of the Rina-chan Board is of her own design, and in one chapter of ''ALL STARS'' she collaborates with Ai to design a website for the School Idol Festival. In the anime, she's also seen helping Ai to fix her stage during the festival after it ran into a technical hiccup.
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: She claims that she isn't very good at showing emotions on her face. [[spoiler:This turns out to be true when the option to remove her mask becomes available in ''ALL STARS''; while she can smile and wink while performing like the other characters, she does it less often and frequently has a blank expression on her face even when singing.]]
* TheGimmick: Rina fills the role of Nijigasaki's token gimmick character, who hides her face with her signature Rina-chan Board to make up for her inability to express herself. The anime both downplays and ''inverts'' the role of her gimmick to a degree, as she doesn't use the Board at all for the first few episodes, and inventing the Board comes at the tail end of her CharacterDevelopment.
* HandHidingSleeves: Of the Cute variety; her sleeves are a bit too long for her arms, but that only serves to make her look cuter.
* IJustWantToHaveFriends: Episode 6 of the anime reveals that she has frequently desired this, but found it difficult to approach others due to her inability to show her emotions.
* IntrovertedCatPerson: She has a pet robot cat named Aran. She also found a stray cat in Nijigasaki grounds she named Hanpen.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: Her real face, which the game spent months hiding before finally revealing in her character story, is shown with zero fanfare as part of the first PV of the anime.
* NiceGirl: She is very kind and sweet-hearted.
* NonUniformUniform: She wears a blue hoodie with [[HandHidingSleeves very long sleeves]] with her winter uniform instead of the Nijigasaki uniform's standard black jacket. She still wears it with her summer uniform, along with a pair of red sneakers instead of the standard brown loafers.
* OddFriendship: She has this dynamic with Ai in the anime. While she has difficulty with expressing her emotions and is consequently withdrawn as a result, the latter is exceptionally genki and expressive. Additionally, while she only had the latter [[OnlyFriend as a friend]] before both of them joined the school idol club, the latter is very popular among the student body in Nijigasaki.
* ShoutOut: Her initial UR costume, seen on "I WILL Beat It!"/"Emotive Signals", makes her look like Music/HatsuneMiku.
* ShrinkingViolet: She feels too ashamed to show her true face in fear of coming across as antisocial.
* TastesLikeFriendship: In Chapter 22, after finding Mia passed out from being overworked, Rina buys her a hamburger. This forms the initial basis for their later friendship.
* TeenGenius: Rina is ''insanely'' talented for a high school girl. The Digital Pixel Mask Rina-chan Board was invented by her and is essentially a tablet that instantaneously reacts to her emotions on the fly without having to read her face, and is capable of emulating lip movements accurately. One cutscene also has her casually mention developing an app to kill time, and her "Emotive Signals" UR reveals that she modded a ''VR headset'' function into the Rina-chan Board.
* WhenSheSmiles: Despite her usual inability to show emotions, she manages to flash a smile for her fans without her Rina-chan Board in [[https://youtu.be/mubeTUMi5x4?t=56 Season 3 #60]] of Webcomic/{{Nijiyon}}, much to the delight of said fans, both in-universe and out.
[[/folder]]

![=DiverDiva=]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/super_nova.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[=DiverDiva=]'s first single, "SUPER NOVA"]]

The resident "Cool" subunit, consisting of a duet between third year Karin Asaka and second year Ai Miyashita. Unlike previous "Cool" subunits, [=DiverDiva=] has a more focused outlook on EDM music, blending it with a rap style (courtesy of Ai) to carve a unique niche in the ''Love Live!'' franchise.
----
* CantCatchUp: PlayedForDrama.
** [[spoiler:The reason why they joined the Association is to close the gap in skill between them and the more popular members of the club like Setsuna and Kasumi.]]
** [[spoiler:Despite their massive improvements after joining the Association, Karin loses to Kasumi in the first round while Ai loses to Setsuna in the second round. This causes both of them to enter HeroicBSOD.]]
* CosmicMotifs: On their first single. It's also been noted that Karin and Ai have a [[SolarAndLunar "sun/moon" juxtaposition]], potentially a reference to a scrapped subunit name/concept, "[=SoLuna=]".
* DemotedToExtra: An InUniverse example. By joining the School Idol Association, Karin and Ai went from solo idols to backup dancers for Lanzhu with questionable prospects on being able to perform at all. Emma even lampshades this when she asks Karin if switching sides was worth it.
* ElectronicDanceMusic: Following in the footsteps of [=BiBi=] and Guilty Kiss as the resident "Cool" unit, this is [=DiverDiva=]'s specialty, although they do mix it up a bit by having a rap twist on the usual sexy/suave style.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:At the start of Season 2 of the storyline in ''ALL STARS'', both Karin and Ai leave the school idol club in favor of the one started by Lanzhu. This puts them in direct conflict with their former clubmates, as Lanzhu is attempting to disband the school idol club.]]
* LoveTriangle: Their first single's B-side, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Love Triangle"]], is about one.
* OrangeBlueContrast: Their image colors.
* PunnyName: Given that PungeonMaster Ai is part of this subunit, it was likely to be expected.
** The Diver part of the name is a pun of Odaiba, the town in which Nijigasaki High is located.
** "Love Triangle". The word "love" can be written as "ai", and the word "triangle" can be written as "sankakkei" in Japanese. If read together, it can be pronounced as "Ai-san kakkei", meaning "Ai-san is cool".
* RedOniBlueOni: Ai's energetic red to Karin's cool blue. It's even in [[OrangeBlueContrast their colors]]. [[spoiler:This is also how they come up with their unit concept in Chapter 26, by playing off each others' clashing personalities and styles to become greater than the sum of their parts.]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Since Karin and Ai joined the School Idol Association, their former clubmates have noticed a marked improvement in their dancing skills.
----

[[folder:Karin Asaka]]
[[quoteright:188:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_karin.png]]
[[caption-width-right:188:The Sexy Big Sister School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Royal Blue
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Birthday:''' June 29 (Cancer)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' AB
-->'''Height:''' 167cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B88/W57/H89
-->'''Symbol:''' Stiletto
-->'''Voiced by:''' Miyu Kubota
\\\
A third-year from Nijigasaki Academy, Karin wants to become a school idol to boost her self-confidence. Karin is very mature and gives off a rather seductive vibe. She often tries to tease her underclassmen, or teach them how to be sexy and cool like her... although it can backfire when they begin to show her lots of attention or respond purely, and she becomes embarrassed afterwards.

Karin is Emma's roommate at the Nijigasaki Academy dorms.
----
* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Karin is written drastically different in the anime compared to the game, as while her game counterpart plays up her MsFanservice traits and her being TheTease takes up most of her character, the anime changes her into an AloofDarkHairedGirl who acts as a CoolBigSis, is a bit of an IneffectualLoner, and has a {{Tsundere}} streak about her. She's also pretty off-hands with the club until Emma convinces her to open up in Episode 5, and she's still reluctant about being close to the other club members until her episode.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: In Chapter 20 of ''ALL STARS'', she joins the School Idol Association created by Lanzhu, and states that she views the friendships she made in the Club as secondary to (and thus of lesser importance to) their rivalry with each other and improving herself as a school idol. In contrast, Episode 9 of the anime depicts her struggling with the notion that friends and rivals need not be mutually exclusive, and she is ultimately able to reconcile the apparently contradictory notion that she can be rivals with her clubmmates and yet still be friendly with them as well.
* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: Karin and Emma were strangers in ''ALL STARS'' before the entire club was gathered in the story. In the anime, she and Emma met shortly after the latter moved to Japan and are close friends right from the beginning, with Karin even helping her out when the original school idol club was suddenly disbanded.
* AloofDarkHairedGirl: By her own admission, she claims that she doesn't like being around too many people in the anime.
* AlwaysSecondBest: [[spoiler:Despite her best efforts, she can't seem to close the gap between her and the popular members of the club like Setsuna and Kasumi. This led her to join the Association.]]
* BeneathTheMask: There are several indications that she isn't as confident as she lets on, and that the mature and seductive image she likes to portray is largely a front. While she likes to tease other people, she'll get embarrassed when they tease her back or don't respond the way she expects.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: In the anime, while generally kind, she carries an intimidating aura to those who don't know her well or if she's [[TranquilFury sufficiently angered]], which is best seen when she confronts Nana for Emma's sake in Episodes 2 and 3.
* BookDumb: Chapter 10 reveals that she has poor grades.
* BreakTheHaughty: [[spoiler:For all her confident bravado during the school idol tournament, she ultimately loses to Kasumi in the first round in Chapter 24 despite all the training she received from the Association, resulting in her locking herself up in her room and crying, unable to understand why she lost.]]
* CoverVersion: Covers Ai's "Meccha Going!!" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* CutenessProximity: Karin loves pandas and goes into CutenessOverload around them.
** In her bond story, she drops her cool facade and starts fawning over the panda at the zoo.
** In [[https://youtu.be/f-LRmz5ljfU?t=37 NijiYon Season 3 #36]], Karin tries to keep her cool to no avail, as the other club members look over the panda photo album that she accidentally left in the club room.
* CoolBigSis: Karin is the big sister figure of the club. Some members of µ's and Aqours also see her as this.
* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: Has dark blue hair and blue eyes.
* {{Determinator}}: Subverted. Karin has a strong sense of perseverance but she has her limits. [[spoiler:She gets depressed after losing to Kasumi at the first round of the tournament in chapter 24, even after receiving training from the Association.]]
* DistinguishingMark: She has three neatly arranged moles near her left collarbone.
* FashionModel: She works as a magazine model.
* FriendlyRivalry: With Setsuna.
* IneffectualLoner: She's somewhat more aloof in the anime than she was in the game, being supposedly resistant to the idea of becoming a school idol herself while simultaneously only initially helping out the club for Emma's sake. Naturally, Emma sees through this and successfully convinces Karin to join with her after finding out how she actually wanted to be a school idol herself in episode 5.
* MsFanservice: Invoked. Karin's pitch introduces her as a "sexy" type idol who wants to enthrall audiences with her body. She has a rather mature design that makes her appear [[YoungerThanTheyLook five years older than she actually is]], and her idol costume appears to be somewhat more provocative in design than normal. As she is a FashionModel, this is probably justified.
* NoSenseOfDirection: She dislikes geography and is not good with maps.
** In the "Music Made Together" event, she gets lost with Yoshiko in Tokyo despite having a map to the venue of Riko and Maki's recital. They do eventually make it to the venue by accident.
** In Episode 9 of the anime, Karin leaves her photo shoot and ends up lost while using a map on her phone; luckily, Setsuna, Ayumu, and Yu find her.
** After performing a show during the Festival itself on the anime's final episode, Karin ends up getting lost again during the time in between her performance and Emma's, asking Emma where her next stage is.
* NotAMorningPerson: Has trouble waking up in the morning.
* PerformanceAnxiety:
** Emma reveals that Karin suffered from this before going on stage in this [[https://youtu.be/6sp7RfV5570?t=172 voiced drama]].
** In Episode 9 of the anime, right before she's due to hit the stage at [=DiverFes=], Karin suddenly realizes the magnitude of the situation she's in and runs away. The rest of the club manages to find and give her the encouragement she needs to get back on stage in the nick of time.
* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: She clearly doesn't mind being the MsFanservice of the group, as she loves to tease others and tends to wear more [[{{Stripperiffic}} provocative outfits]] than the other girls when performing.
* SoreLoser: Karin hates losing to anyone, and is willing to go to any lengths to defeat her rivals. [[spoiler:Losing in popularity to Kasumi hits her so hard she slumps into a HeroicBSOD for a while, completely unable to understand where she went wrong.]]
* SpiritedCompetitor: Karin's most distinguishing personality trait in both the game and anime is her competitive fire that spurs her initial treatment of her clubmates as rivals first and friends second. Harnessing her spirit into passion makes up part of her Bond Story in the game, while consolidating her views on friends and rivals makes up her episode in the anime.
* {{Stripperiffic}}: Her Tokimeki Runners outfit shows off her cleavage (particularly, her DistinguishingMark), midriff and legs.
* TheTease: She really likes to tease her underclassmen. She also wants to give a "veeeery stimulating" show to everyone watching her. However, she gets embarrassed if whoever she's teasing teases her back or doesn't get flustered like she expects them to.
* TrashOfTheTitans: Her dorm room is always messy, so Emma usually comes over to help clean it up.
* {{Tsundere}}: She gives off an air of a cool and aloof older sister figure to mostly everyone around her in the anime and is quick to deny how much she cares, but neither Emma, who she is genuinely kind to the most, nor Kanata are fooled.
* VocalEvolution: Miyu Kubota's singing voice for Karin has audibly smoothened out over time compared to her earlier performances. Notable for the fact she otherwise has a naturally higher-pitched voice but sings for a low-pitched character.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Karin looks and acts more like a college student or a working adult than a high schooler.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Ai Miyashita]]
[[quoteright:197:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/loveliveniji_ai.png]]
[[caption-width-right:197:The True Gyaru School Idol]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Super Orange
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Birthday:''' May 30 (Gemini)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' A
-->'''Height:''' 163cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B84/W53/H86
-->'''Symbol:''' High five
-->'''Voiced by:''' Natsumi Murakami
\\\
An energetic second year in Nijigasaki Academy. She "stumbled" into school idol scene after a friend asked if she wants to. As a person who's always willing to help, she has a lot of friends. Besides that, Ai likes to make puns. She's actually an honor student, with high grades and is also athletic.
----
* AcademicAthlete: She's an honor student, and in Chapter 6 of ''ALL STARS'' manages to beat [[ActionGirl the athletic]] [[Characters/LoveLive Rin]] in a race.
* TheAce: Pretty, academically excellent, great at sports, a fast learner, and very popular in school, Ai is certainly a topnotcher in all the right marks.
* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: Neither Ayumu nor Yu are familiar with her before meeting her in the anime. Compare this in the game where Ayumu was the one who recommended her to the protagonist as a potential school idol in Chapter 1 and the protagonist immediately recognizes who she was talking about once she namedrops her.
* AdaptationalBackstoryChange: The specific origin of her PungeonMaster habit varies by canon. In the game, she developed it at a younger age as a way to cheer up Misato, but in the anime, Emma says something punny and Ai finds it so hilarious that she just picks up the habit.
* AdaptationalModesty: Ai's main school idol outfit in the anime is less tight-fitting and not as revealing as her default "Tokimeki Runners" outfit from the game.
* AlwaysSecondBest: [[spoiler:She feels inferior to Setsuna and Kanata as they both consistently reach top ranking in popularity. She also highlights that Kasumi's popularity far exceeds her own as well. As such, she was spurred to defect to the Association as a way to challenge herself so that she can beat Setsuna some day. Sadly, she lost to Setsuna in the idol tournament in Chapter 24.]]
* CoolBigSis: Her relationship with Rina in both the game and the anime, serving as the closest thing to a supportive big sister figure for the younger Rina.
* CoverVersion: Covers Kasumi's "Diamond" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* CryCute: [[spoiler:In Chapter 24, she tries to take her loss in the school idol competition in her usual upbeat stride, but she ultimately breaks into tears and has to be consoled by the protagonist.]]
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Similarly to Yu, after getting an interest in school idols and officially joining the school idol club, her focus episode in the anime deals with her trying to find out what kind of direction she wants to take as a solo idol and knowing what to do from there.
* {{Engrish}}: Interjects ''a lot'' of English phrases in her song and conversations.
* FearOfThunder: Ai was told by her grandmother to hide her bellybutton during thunderstorms or else Raijin will eat it. While this is a commonly heard old wives' tale in Japan, Ai still cowers and hides her bellybutton whenever she hears thunder.
* ForHappiness: Her main objective as an idol. She wants everyone to have fun, laugh and be happy with her performance.
* FriendOrIdolDecision: In Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'', [[spoiler:she tells Misato that this is the reason she defected to Lanzhu's School Idol Association. In particular, she cites her ranking on school idol polls as being eclipsed by that of Setsuna, Kanata, and Kasumi, and thus joined the Association to try and boost her ranking in order to beat Setsuna. However, this comes at the cost of coming in conflict with her former clubmates, due to Lanzhu's actions against them, and alienating at least some of them, especially Kasumi.]]
* GyaruGirl: Has the looks and fashion sense of a kogal, and at one point, Ayumu also has a dream where Ai becomes [[https://lovelive-as.bushimo.jp/comic/chap5/ a ganguro]]. However, she subverts the stereotypical personality of the trope in that she's actually an honor student and has a rather dorky sense of humor.
* GenkiGirl: Is very friendly, excitable, and energetic.
* InformedAttribute: The "gyaru" part of her character pitch. Starting out as simply a fashion choice meant to be subverted by her actual dorky personality, this was slowly phased out, until the anime outright ditched that in favor of making her a straight ace student.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: She continues to be friendly with most of her former clubmates after defecting to Lanzhu's Association. While most of said clubmates do not mind this and treat her civilly, Kasumi is distinctly angered by both Ai's defection and her casual interactions with the Club's members, seemingly pretending as if nothing had happened between them.
* JackOfAllTrades: In the anime, she's known as a "hero" around Nijigasaki for having a hand in so many clubs at once, especially sports clubs.
* MotorMouth: The rapper of the club. Most prominent in her 3rd solo, "Tanoshii no Tensai".
* MsFanservice: Not to the extent of Karin but being a gyaru, her casual clothes and some costumes show a lot of skin.
* TheNicknamer: She tends to give personal nicknames to her friends.
* NonUniformUniform: She wears a brown sweater with her winter uniform instead of the Nijigasaki uniform's standard black jacket. She ties the sweater around her waist in her summer uniform.
* OddFriendship: She has this dynamic with Rina in the anime. While she is very expressive and genki, the latter has difficulty expressing her emotions and is considerably more withdrawn. Additionally, while she is very popular among the student body in Nijigasaki, she was the latter's OnlyFriend until the two of them joined the school idol club.
* OnlyFriend: In the anime, prior to the two of them joining the school idol club, she was this to Rina.
* PungeonMaster: Puts a lot of puns into her speech.
* PunnyName: The name of her second solo, "友 & 愛", translates to "Friends and Love", but the former kanji, normally pronounced "tomo", can also be read as "yuu", thus producing the pronunciation "You and I" (or "you and Ai").
* {{Stripperiffic}}: Her "Tokimeki Runners" outfit consists of a sleeveless vest that exposes her bra and her midriff, and hotpants with visible underwear straps.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Refers to herself as "Ai-san".
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukazuke Nukazuke]], a Japanese form of pickled vegetables. She particularly likes her grandmother's nukazuke.
* UnknownRival: Downplayed. [[spoiler:She sees Setsuna as an obstacle to overcome in her bid to become the most popular school idol on the polls, to the point that she is willing to join Lanzhu's School Idol Association and alienate her former clubmates to do so. However, Setsuna has not given any indication that she even cares about these polls or perceives any of her clubmates in the same way.]]
[[/folder]]

!Unnamed Nijigasaki Unit
A unit formed by Lanzhu Zhong in Chapter 28 of ''ALL STARS'' alongside her ChildhoodFriend Shioriko Mifune and prodigal songwriter Mia Taylor. They specialize in a hard-hitting power style of music unlike the other Nijigasaki school idols that is further accentuated by the members' commanding stage presence and multi-lingual vocals.
\\\
This unit's name will be decided through popular vote via ''Dengeki G's'' on July 21st, 2021.
----
[[folder:Shioriko Mifune]]
[[quoteright:197:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shioriko.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Jade green
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' October 5 (Libra)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' AB
-->'''Height:''' 160cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B79/W56/H78
-->'''Symbol:''' Bookmark
-->'''Voiced by:''' Moeka Koizumi
\\\
An earnest first year who challenged Setsuna for the position of StudentCouncilPresident.\\\

With a strong desire to help anyone and everyone live their best lives, Shioriko wants to improve Nijigasaki High to better prepare its students for their future.\\\

However, she does not have a good impression of school idols, believing them to be the "embodiment of uselessness". One of her goals if she becomes student council president is to abolish the school idol club and spread its current members to other clubs that would be better suited for their talents.

----
* TheAce: She's described as calm, well-behaved, academically gifted and flawless.
* AffectionateNickname: She gets called "Shiotti" by Ai and "Shioko" by Kasumi later on.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Her technique is quite similar to the protagonist's, being able to quickly tell a person's strengths and weaknesses by simply watching them in action. However, unlike the protagonist, who uses her ability to help improve her friends, Shioriko is quite forceful and stubborn in coercing students to do things that she believes would fit their skills better. While she is ''right'' most of the time, said students also tend to not enjoy doing what they excel at and would rather do what they love.
* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: Shioriko being the student council president is initially presented as being bad, especially for the School Idol Club that she plans to abolish. It isn't until the success of the school campus tour that the student body (including the School Idol Club) accepts her as fit for the role due to Shioriko learning how to negotiate and compromise with the club presidents.
* BreakThemByTalking: Twice, to the same person, no less.
** During the public debate, Shioriko directly asks Nana if she is giving full effort to both her duties and her passions. Unfortunately, Nana's answer lacks conviction, swaying the student body to Shioriko's side.
** During the election speech, Shioriko counters Nana's pledge by saying that her vision for the school is contradictory to what she is doing now, and for the most part, she only wants the role of StudentCouncilPresident to protect her passions (the school idol club). Nana was unable to deny the claim and loses the election.
* ChildhoodFriends: She and Lanzhu apparently go back; due to this, Shioriko has a less negative outlook on Lanzhu's behavior compared to the other girls, and [[spoiler:this partly contributes to her decision to leave the group to join the Association, albeit with reluctance.]]
* CoverVersion: Covers Karin's "Starlight" during the Nijigasaki Shuffle Festival.
* CuteLittleFangs: Her fangs only serve to make her look cute instead of intimidating.
* TheCynic: Her view on high school life is rather pragmatic and boring, which puts her at odds with the idealistic members of the School Idol Club.
* DefrostingIceQueen: A big part of her development in-game. She gradually warms up to the school idol club, first starting to practice with them and understanding why the player character wants to save it in Chapter 13, then talking both with Ayumu and the protagonist in chapter 15/16 in order to help them settle their conflict, and enable the club to come back to "how she likes it", [[spoiler: and finally joining the Nijigasaki Idol Club at the climax of chapter 17 at the insistence of Ayumu]].
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The kanji used for "shiori" means "bookmark", and her character symbol is... a bookmark.
* ExtremeDoormat: Shioriko is noticeably far less assertive and self-sustaining in Season 2, akin to a RedemptionDemotion, and finds herself getting bossed around by Lanzhu early in the story despite her purported attempts to curb the effects of Lanzhu's behavior (which mostly amounts to hiring two school idol fans to run the Monitoring Committee).
* EvilCounterpart:
** To Setsuna/Nana. Both girls come from [[{{Ojou}} rich families]] and are stated to be [[TheAce very competent on what they do]]. However, Shioriko doesn't particularly care for school idols.
** To the protagonist. Both girls are competent and responsible due to their AwesomenessByAnalysis ability. Shioriko is TheStoic that doesn't like school idols, while the protagonist is a GenkiGirl that adores µ's, Aqours and her school idol club.
** To Dia and Eli, with Shioriko having their worst traits from their time as {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s in their respective anime while having none of their redeeming qualities until her CharacterDevelopment.
* FamilyThemeNaming: She and her older sister [[spoiler:share the same kanji for "ko".]]
* FirstNameBasis: During Chapter 13, she gets called "Shioriko-san" (with the exception of Ai and Kasumi, who uses nicknames) once she starts hanging out with them.
* ForcedIntoEvil: Shortly after joining the School Idol Club, she leaves it to join Lanzhu's School Idol Association. However, it should be noted that she did this reluctantly, out of a feeling of obligation to Lanzhu on account of their old friendship and to try and mitigate the authoritarian actions Lanzhu attempts to impose on the Club's activities. As such, her actions fall more in line with this trope rather than being a full-fledged FaceHeelTurn.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** [[https://twitter.com/LoveLive_staff/status/1342835557542494209 An announcement]] for Season 4 of Nijiyon features her symbol, a bookmark, teasing her introduction into that series.
** [[spoiler:The final episode of Season 1 of ''Nijigasaki High School Idol Club'' has a volunteer signups sheet with her image color on it in the background of one of the last scenes in the episode.]]
* FriendToAllChildren: In Chapter 11, the other first years accidentally saw her treating a child kindly. It's the first sign that Shioriko has a nicer side.
* FullNameBasis: Kasumi calls her by her full name without any honorific. Justified as Kasumi doesn't like her until Shioriko starts getting closer to the club members.
* GuestStarPartyMember: Played with. At the end of Chapter 17 of ''ALL STARS'', she officialy joins the School Idol Club. This lasts for two chapters before she defects to Lanzhu's School Idol Association at the start of Season 2. However, official sources started listing her as a member of the School Idol Club following the release of Chapter 17, and other parts of the franchise (including the lives, [=CDs=], and merchandise) have continued to do so, in spite of the aforementioned plot development in ''ALL STARS''. This suggests that those in charge of the franchise's direction intend for Shioriko's addition to the Club to be a long-term thing that defines the group.
* HeelFaceTurn: Shioriko is outright antagonistic to pretty much all of the club members, and is by far the most directly hostile of the {{Student Council President}}s in the entire franchise, [[spoiler:but just like all the others, she ends up becoming a school idol herself.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** [[BreakThemByTalking Delivering two public verbal beatdowns to Nana]] was not the nicest move and is treated as a KickTheDog moment by the club members, but she's not entirely wrong when she claims that Nana only wants to preserve her role as StudentCouncilPresident in order to protect the school idol club, as Nana is unable to deny this claim. Nana even admits that Shioriko is more suited to the role due to her better charisma and clearer goals.
** She also gets one in Chapter 14. After Ayumu's success at the school tour, Shioriko promised the Nijigasaki girls they could perform at school events and use the school to hold performances. Despite this, she doesn't permit them to use the high school to host the School Idol Festival, and brings up some valid points. The big issue is that it's a large-scale event that gathers school idols all across the country. She points out that an event as big as that would require the entire school to run the event. However, students in different clubs also use the school for their club activities, so it would be unfair to make all of them to put their activities on hold for the sake of one club. She also points out that such a huge event would require a lot of staff behind the scenes. Just getting some volunteers from within Nijigasaki is not going to be enough to handle the huge number of visitors that will be attending. In fact, Shioriko requires the club to gather one thousand volunteers to sign up if they wish to use the school to host the festival.
* LackOfEmpathy: One of her major character flaws is her complete inability to connect with other people on an emotional level due to her obsession with giving students meaningful lives at the expense of their own personal wants, which not only causes friction with the School Idol Club but also nearly everyone else. A big part of her CharacterDevelopment is teaching her how to see things from a different angle than she's used to.
* LastNameBasis: She gets called "Mifune-san" by the members of the school idol club with the exception of Kasumi, who uses her full name.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: [[spoiler:It didn't take long for official material (within a matter of days, in fact) to spoil that she's officially a school idol after the release of Chapter 17.]]
* LeaderWannabe: She wants to become the StudentCouncilPresident as she has her own views of what an ideal high school life should be. She wins the election in Chapter 9.
* LoonyFriendsImproveYourPersonality: Her development involves the protagonist invoking this by having her temporarily join the School Idol Club as a guest. Being surrounded by a colorful cast of girls with distinct and unique flaws and traits while also learning how much hard work and effort they put into realizing their dream causes Shioriko to [[DefrostingIceQueen slowly turn around and soften up.]]
* MyWayOrTheHighway: Prior to her CharacterDevelopment, she didn't believe in the word "compromise". Although she acts with the best intentions she dislikes it when anyone deviates from the path she's set for them and due to her LackOfEmpathy is incapable of understanding why they would do so when she has seemingly laid out the optimal solution. This made it very difficult for her and the other clubs to see eye to eye, causing her to nearly cancel the upcoming club fair until the protagonist stepped in.
* NotSoStoic:
** The first sign that there's more to her story than she lets on is when [[spoiler:Shioriko draws a parallel between her sister and the protagonist; when the protagonist questions her about it, she becomes flustered and immediately changes the topic.]]
** She gives Ayumu a bit of a ribbing in one exchange in Chapter 15, which surprises Ayumu as she didn't consider Shioriko to be the type to joke around with others.
* {{Ojou}}: Of the ProperLady type.
* PetTheDog:
** She's seen helping a little boy in the ''ALL STARS'' main story to show that she isn't so cold and mean.
** In Rina's Bond Story, she allows Rina to keep Hanpen in the School Idol Club's club room until the cat finds a proper owner despite the school's strict "no pets" policy.
** After being instructed by Lanzhu to create a Monitoring Committee to interfere with the School Idol Club's activities, she deliberately chooses people who are fans of the Club and instructs them to time their attempts to stop the Club's guerilla lives such that there is not too much disruption to said lives.
* RedArmbandOfLeadership: She wears one when she becomes the new Student Council President.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: While her overall goal is noble, she comes across as antagonistic due to her wish to close down the school idol club.
* SiblingYinYang: She has a complicated relationship with her sister.
** Initially, the story frames it as a RedOniBlueOni type. Before her CharacterDevelopment, Shioriko is cold and pragmatic while her older sister is warm and supportive.
** Chapter 27 reveals [[spoiler:that it's also a FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling with Shioriko being the responsible and dutiful sister.]]
* SixthRanger: [[spoiler:She officially joins the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club at the end of ''ALL STARS'' Season 1.]]
* SkilledButNaive: Shioriko is incredibly talented for a first-year but has a MyWayOrTheHighway approach to leadership. Part of her CharacterDevelopment is to learn how to empathize with other people and use it to make compromises to make the students happy.
* StudentCouncilPresident: She is the Student Council President of Nijigasaki High as of Chapter 10.
* TheStoic: She's very calm and collected, and speaks in a professional and monotone manner.
* SugarAndIcePersonality: Shioriko is a stern and strict person with everyone (even the player character, who usually is charismatic enough to get along with everyone)[[spoiler:, except with Ayumu. Their interactions eventually develop to the point where Shioriko visibly blushes when complimented by Ayumu, jokes around with her, and also acts protective of her when the Chapter 15 conflict happens. Ayumu is also the one that pushes Shioriko enough to accept that she actually wants to be an idol at the climax of Chapter 17. She also starts to show cracks to Setsuna on her bond stories ]]
* TokenGoodTeammate: Among the members of the School Idol Association, she displays the most sympathy towards the plight of the School Idol Club and the protagonist. In fact, she joined the Association at least in part to try and mitigate as much of Lanzhu's interference in the Club's activities as possible. This is in stark contrast to the Association's other members, who joined to fulfill personal goals.
* TotalitarianUtilitarian: She wants students to be more productive with their clubs and believes that schools should prepare its students for the future and not waste their lives away. This vision puts her at odds with the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club as she believes that the club has no purpose.
* VillainyFreeVillain: Shioriko is a genuinely well-meaning and upstanding person. However, her actions and views on school idols put her at odds with the School Idol Club, who is forced to oppose her on multiple occasions due to her intent to dismantle the club with her power. Shioriko does have a few redeeming qualities but her aggressive, blunt and pragmatic way of doing things generally make her unlikeable and antagonistic.
* WalkingSpoiler: Due to the 3 1/2 month gap of the relevant stories released between the JP and Global servers, discussing Shioriko in terms of the overall project will spoil Global-only players that [[spoiler:she officially becomes a school idol herself.]]
* WhenSheSmiles: Despite her stoic nature and attitude, she lets out one of these near the end of Chapter 13. She even states that she will join the group in their training after getting things done in the Student Council. Even her cute little fang shows.
* YamatoNadeshiko: She is being raised to be one although she is more assertive compared to the ideal.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mia Taylor]]
[[quoteright:198:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_mia_taylor.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Beige-white
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/ShuuUchida
\\\
A bilingual transfer student from New York and one of Lanzhu's friends. She serves as the composer and lyricist for Lanzhu's School Idol Association, and enrolls as a third year despite her age. Contrasting Lanzhu's gung-ho attitude about joining up with Nijigasaki and starting the School Idol Association, Mia was unwillingly dragged from her home to placate Lanzhu, and initially comes off as comparatively foul-mouthed and asocial.\\\

She forms an unusual bond with Rina in Chapter 22.
----
* AffectionateNickname: Ai calls her "Mia-chi".
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: According to Lanzhu, she analyzes popular trends and uses them as inspiration for songwriting.
* BerserkButton: She loathes being compared to the protagonist as a songwriter, especially since she is FamedInStory and part of a prestigious musical family, while the latter is an amateur in comparison who only writes songs out of passion for her fellow clubmates. She is later convinced to reassess her view of the protagonist after Rina, whom she struck up a friendship with, tells her that their methods are NotSoDifferent.
* {{Bokukko}}: She uses the boyish "boku" when referring to herself in first-person in Japanese.
* {{Catchphrase}}: “Shit.”
* ChildProdigy: Her composition background is quite prolific, with multiple chart-topping hits under her belt that make her a decorated songwriter. She is also a GradeSkipper, enrolling in Nijigasaki as a third year student.
* CommonalityConnection: The basis of her bond with Rina. They both like hamburgers, video games, [[spoiler:quiet places and music.]]
* EvilCounterpart: To the protagonist, being the Association's lyricist and songwriter who isn't a school idol herself. Unlike the protagonist, who also serves as a leader and role model for the club, Mia is abrasive by nature and plays second fiddle to Lanzhu.
* FamedInStory: Even before transferring to Nijigasaki and independently of her familial affiliations, Mia was already a well-known songwriter, with Mari and Riko expressing familiarity with her work.
* GradeSkipper: Owing to her being a ChildProdigy, she enrolls in Nijigasaki as a third year student despite being ''fourteen years old''. Back in the United States, she was a ''college student''.
* ItRunsInTheFamily: Mia comes from a family of famous singers although Mia isn't one herself.
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: She is introduced in Chapter 19, the last installment of the first season of ''ALL STARS'', alongside Lanzhu.
* LethalChef: While nowhere near as lethal as Lanzhu, Mia is somehow even ''more'' clueless about food. Not only does she have to be told what part of a cherry tomato is the stem, her "attempt" at making instant hot chocolate results in the protagonist informing her that the hot chocolate powder actually needs water or milk to turn into something potable. She is also impressed by Setsuna's cooking, forcing Rina to divert her attention to stop her from making a big mistake.
* NewTransferStudent: She transfers into Nijigasaki from a college in New York on Lanzhu's prompting.
* NonUniformUniform: She wears a navy and white letterman jacket in place of a blazer over her winter uniform.
* NotSoDifferent:
** To the protagonist. Both of them dedicate their songs to their club member and both of them are plagued with self doubt for their fear of letting down the people around them.
** Rina deliberately invokes this in Chapter 22, highlighting small things that she and Mia have in common as the basis of a CommonalityConnection.
* PeekABangs: Her fringe is long enough to cover her right eye.
* PerformanceAnxiety: [[spoiler:She used to love singing up until her first public performance wherein she froze up in front of the audience due to the heavy expectations weighing on her mind. She took up music composition instead to avoid dragging her family name through the mud.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In Chapter 22, Mia pointedly tells Lanzhu to fix her personality if she wants any hope of convincing the school idols who haven't defected to her club to join her. As Lanzhu CantTakeCriticism, she simply insists that there is nothing to fix.
* SirSwearsALot: She's rather foul-mouthed, especially compared to the rest of the cast.
* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish:
** She tends to interject with properly-accented English words or phrases before continuing her train of thought in Japanese.
** [[spoiler:Her solo song, "I'm Still...", is not only done in the style of Western pop music, but also has the distinction of being the very first ''Love Live!'' song sung ''primarily'' in English with little bits of Japanese thrown in, and with a proper American accent to boot!]]
* TeenGenius: She's only 14 yet she is already known worldwide for her compositions.
* TokenMinority: She's American.
* {{Tomboy}}: Particularly when compared to the other girls. She has BoyishShortHair, [[{{Bokukko}} uses the “boku” pronoun]], wears her uniform in a rather unkempt manner with a letterman jacket to boot, [[LadySwearsALot and speaks rather coarsely]].
* TookALevelInKindness: She starts out by being incredibly dismissive of the protagonist like Lanzhu and shows a lot of pride in her work as a professional songwriter, taking any comparison of her work to the protagonist's as an insult. Once she gets CharacterDevelopment and makes a BestFriend in Rina, she softens up substantially and begins to acknowledge the protagonist's potential. She even gives the protagonist an AffectionateNickname in "Baby-chan / little baby" in recognition of her efforts as a songwriter.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lanzhu Zhong]]
[[quoteright:268:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_lanzhu.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Rose pink
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Akina Homoto
\\\
A Chinese-Japanese student from Hong Kong and the chairwoman's daughter. She transferred to Nijigasaki High to see her childhood friend, Shioriko Mifune. After being introduced to school idols, she created her own group, the School Idol Association, as she has her own approach on what school idols should strive to be.\\\

She serves as the antagonist of ''ALL STARS Season 2''.
----
* TheAce: Lanzhu is an exceptionally talented and hard-working individual, far more than most people, and her school idol performances are repeatedly stated as being top-class. [[spoiler:Chapter 28 reveals that she's actually a BrokenAce.]]
* AlphaBitch: Lanzhu has several hallmarks of this trope: rich, popular as a school idol, charismatic, ''incredibly'' petty and stuck up, and more than willing to abuse her position as the chairwoman’s daughter to get what she wants.
* AnimeChineseGirl: While her standard design looks like it could mostly fit in with the rest of the cast, her costume for "Queendom" plays the Chinese card pretty heavy-handedly, with her hairstyle being done up in odango hair and her outfit being a stylized {{qipao}} combined with regal-style wear like a BadassCape and thigh-high boots. She also strikes a stereotypical crane stance at the end of the song.
* ArcVillain: Of ''ALL STARS Season 2'', being the direct cause of the conflict faced by the School Idol Club.
* AscendedFanboy: She was inspired to become a school idol after watching the performances put on by the School Idol Club for the School Idol Festival, and transferred into Nijigasaki High. She then actively attempts to invoke this trope by creating the School Idol Association and trying to convince the school idols who inspired her to join it. However, she is only partially successful, as only Karin, Ai, and Shioriko (and Shizuku for a brief stint) actually take her up on this offer.
* BeautyMark: Below her right eye.
* BrokenAce: [[spoiler:Her CharacterFocus reveals that being so good at everything alienated her from other people and prevented her from forming lasting friendships, causing her to develop an IJustWantToHaveFriends complex and [[MyWayOrTheHighway communication issues.]] Shioriko became her [[OnlyFriend only]] ChildhoodFriend because Shioriko felt bad for Lanzhu and didn't want her to be lonely.]]
* BrokenPedestal: In a sense, the School Idol Club is this to her, as she was inspired to become a school idol herself after watching their performances. However, her perfectionist streak led to her deeming the very club that inspired her to be amateurish and inferior, and she now seeks its dismantlement.
* ButNotTooForeign: Her profile states that she's actually half-Japanese.
* CantTakeCriticism: In line with her narcissistic personality, she is unable to accept that her approach to being a school idol might be wrong, despite Shioriko and Mia trying to tell her otherwise.
* CatchPhrase: "冇問題" (pronounced as "Mou man tai"), which is Cantonese for "No problem".
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Flashbacks during Lanzhu's CharacterFocus episode reveal that [[spoiler:she's always idolized the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club when she first saw them at the School Idol Festival and dreamed of becoming friends with them, so she set up the Association for them so they could all join together and become even better school idols]]. This is bizarrely inconsistent with her early Season 2 behavior where she actively sought to ''ruin'' the Club to force the girls to join the Association and was downright nasty to the protagonist [[spoiler:despite the entire crux of her character being [[IJustWantToHaveFriends wanting to make friends with others]]]].
* ChildhoodFriends: With Shioriko Mifune.
* CharacterShilling: The other characters never fail to consistently remind the audience how "perfect" Lanzhu's performance as a school idol is. This even extends to characters who are outright antagonistic towards her, such as Kasumi. Shioriko also sticks up for her and claims that she has no bad intentions, a view that is also later shared by the protagonist. This is despite the fact that the former has to constantly work to mitigate the impact of Lanzhu's behavior.
* CoatCape: Her school idol costume has one.
* CustomUniform: She wears a distinctive uniform unlike those worn by the other students, consisting of a gold-lined red cardigan marked with the Nijigasaki High insignia in place of the standard black blazer, and her winter uniform shirt is black instead of the standard white shirt.
* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: [[spoiler:She proves her ace status when she cleanly wins the tournament in Chapter 24 by defeating both Kasumi and Setsuna.]]
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Her approach to school idols is that they should have professionals backing them up in terms of songwriting, costume design, and choreography, and she views this to be the best way to express herself as a school idol. This perspective directly clashes with the notion previously espoused by the franchise that school idol performances are ''inherently amateur productions'', with said idols doing all of these tasks [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything on their own]] in-house, which is part of their appeal.
* EvilCounterpart: To Kotori, being the daughter of a high ranking official of her school (in Lanzhu's case, she's the daughter of Nijigasaki High's chairwoman), but unlike Kotori, flaunts and abuses her status for all its worth.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Her self-absorbed attitude tends to rub both her longtime friends, Shioriko and Mia, the wrong way, with both of them finding her difficult to deal with at times. However, both assist her in her school idol activities because they feel obligated to her on account of their friendship.
* {{Foil}}:
** Both Lanzhu and the protagonist are the leaders of their respective School Idol Clubs who have a great love of school idols and attract the people around them due to their love. However, the protagonist personally handles most of the hard work herself, writes all of the songs and dances, prefers to stay in the background to allow her friends to shine, and has a high level of charisma and leadership. Lanzhu, conversely, delegates all of the work to others, is enamored with the spotlight above all else (to the point of reducing the other members of her Association to backup dancers) and refuses to admit that anyone is better than her, and lacks any sense of charisma or tact, preferring to entice potential members with her top-of-the-line facilities and production values.
** As a school idol, she also serves as a contrast to Ayumu in many aspects. While Ayumu is kind and tender to most people and lacks self-esteem, Lanzhu is narcissistic, snobby to people she doesn't like, and has huge amounts of ego and confidence in her own abilities. Ayumu loves her childhood friend, the protagonist, and is obviously close to her, whereas Lanzhu openly dislikes the protagonist and isn't afraid to show it. Ayumu considers herself largely ordinary while Lanzhu considers herself very special. There's also how they first became school idols: while Ayumu also saw the same school idol performance that inspired the protagonist to love school idols and support them, she initially wasn't as interested in school idols and only became one because she wanted to impress her childhood friend and get her attention, though she eventually grew to genuinely love becoming one later on. Lanzhu immediately took an interest in school idols after watching the School Idol Festival and quickly became one herself.
* FoodAsBribe: She frequently holds expensive luncheons and readily invites the School Idol Club to them as a quick way to try and sway them to her side. However, given that it is implied that she might genuinely want their friendship, it could also be her way of invoking TastesLikeFriendship as well.
* GoodColorsEvilColors: Being the only character in the franchise who wears a black dress shirt as part of her uniform may be emblematic of this.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Being Chinese, she applies some uses of it, such as changing the name of the School Idol Club to "School Idol Club" but with the Japanese "doukokai" swapped out for a Chinese "bu". Her first solo also has the distinction of having English, Mandarin, ''and'' Cantonese phrases spliced in, making it the first song in the franchise to use three languages at once, as Mandarin and Cantonese are separate dialects of the Chinese language.
* HateSink: Subverted. She has an unlikeable personality by default (being a petty and stuck-up AlphaBitch who CantTakeCriticism) and she attempts to disband the School Idol Club by forcing the girls to join her Association, only for her to reduce them to backup dancers with little guarantee of performing individually, and when she fails to win over all 10 members of the club, she goes to ridiculous lengths to prevent them from practicing or putting on shows, and she abuses her status as the chairwoman’s daughter to get away with it all. Additionally, she’s ''very'' dismissive and intolerant towards the protagonist, telling her to her face that she’s boring and useless to the Association. However, the narrative ''really'' wants the audience to know how perfect she is, with the other characters ''constantly'' [[CharacterShilling praising her perfection even though we barely get a glimpse of her performances]], [[spoiler:she’s EasilyForgiven by the club after Shioriko reveals her backstory in Chapter 28]], and despite the awful way Lanzhu treats her and the club, the protagonist thinks she’s a good person with no bad intentions.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: One way she tries to interfere with the School Idol Club is to create a Monitoring Committee to stop their guerilla lives. The Club eventually responds by livestreaming said lives online, which means that any actions made by the Monitoring Committee against them will be seen by their online viewing audience. This ultimately winds up garnering the Club a reputation as an underdog and thus more support, while harming the perception of the Association among school idol fans. Lanzhu is finally forced to disband the Monitoring Committee in Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'' after this series of events causes more harm to the Association than good.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: [[spoiler:Heavily implied by a specific scene in Chapter 27, after Shioriko yells at Lanzhu for designing a routine that only she's capable of. [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Lanzhu starts behaving strangely immediately afterwards]], runs off, and doesn't appear for the rest of the Chapter.]]
* IJustWantToHaveFriends:
** Implied. Despite trying to disband the School Idol Club, she still attempts to win over its members to her side by offering them expensive gifts and meals, and is quick to refer to anyone who shows a slight bit of friendliness towards as her "best friend". This suggests that despite her demeanor, she secretly desires some form of companionship from others. However, her pushy personality and poor treatment of the protagonist wind up driving away the very people she is trying to attract. Because she CantTakeCriticism, she fails to see exactly why her approach is failing, despite Mia clearly spelling it out for her.
** More directly implied in Chapter 27, when Lanzhu shows the protagonist her own notebook about the Association members and she discovers a section detailing a huge laundry list of fun things she wants to do with the Club members after they join her Association. The protagonist wonders why Lanzhu can't already do those things with the Club, but Lanzhu insists on the girls joining the Association before cutting her explanation short.
* InvincibleVillain: Being both [[TheAce the best school idol in Nijigasaki]] and the most powerful student in the entire school makes Lanzhu extremely difficult to contend with for the otherwise-average School Idol Club girls. Not once does she take any meaningful losses besides disbanding the Monitoring Committee, and not only do the Association's shows utterly eclipse the Club's in sheer technical prowess and execution, but [[spoiler:she manages to outstrip even Setsuna's popularity among the student population, who is otherwise FamedInStory as having skills on par with professional idols]].
* {{Jerkass}}: Lanzhu essentially has all of Shioriko's worst traits pre-CharacterDevelopment but instead of being an ice-cold ObstructiveBureaucrat she's just an asshole. Shioriko maintains that Lanzhu doesn't really mean harm but doesn't have a better way to express herself to others.
* JerkassToOne: She's egocentric and selfish, but at the very least, she's genuinely friendly towards the school idols even though her actions caused the original club a lot of grief in the game's second season. However, she dislikes the protagonist and is intentionally rude and dismissive towards her especially in their interactions together. It's notable that the protagonist is the only member of the original school idol club that Lanzhu clearly doesn't want to invite over to the new one she formed. [[spoiler:A conversation between the protagonist and Mia in Chapter 28 has Mia suggesting that Lanzhu may have acted this way because she was jealous of how the protagonist was essentially the center of attention for the Club.]]
* KickTheDog: Aside from preventing the School Idol Club from reestablishing itself through any means possible and taking away the crowd Kasumi gathered for the guerilla live the Club put up, there's how she treats the protagonist when they actually meet face-to-face for the first time: telling her how uninteresting she is after learning firsthand how she was the original president of the School Idol Club and then having the gall to tell her how she has no use for someone like the protagonist in her School Idol Association thanks to Mia's presence making her unnecessary. Notably, after being told all that, the protagonist's self-esteem takes a bit of a hit until Shioriko reassures and comforts her afterwards.
* LackOfEmpathy: Like Shioriko, this is her main flaw. She believes that school idols should have the best environment and staff to become the best that they can be and dismisses any comment that it could be wrong.
** In Chapter 22, [[spoiler:she doesn't even realize that Mia is mentally stressed out. When she goes missing and everyone is worried about her, she just shrugs it off and thinks Mia is just making a song for her]].
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: She is introduced in Chapter 19, the last installment of the first season of ''ALL STARS'', alongside Mia.
* LethalChef: She claims to be good at basically anything, but the moment Kaoruko forces her to do her own cooking it becomes plainly obvious that she's never set foot in a kitchen a day in her life. Hilariously, ''Setsuna'' of all people is impressed by Lanzhu's miserable attempt at cooking, and it ultimately falls upon SupremeChef Kanata to save their dinner.
* LonelyAtTheTop: Despite being the most powerful student in Nijigasaki, almost no one in the Association likes her. Shioriko only joins her Association to rein her in (unsuccessfully), Mia makes her displeasure clear for being dragged to Japan just to be her personal songwriter, the Monitoring Committee are secretly on the original Club's side.
* LonelyRichKid: Played with; although she is both lonely and a rich kid, her loneliness isn't related to her money. However, she does try to use money to buy friendships, treating potential friends to expensive luncheons and the like.
* MyWayOrTheHighway: Lanzhu initially attempts to prevent the School Idol Club from carrying out their activities, wanting her Association to be the only group of school idols in Nijigasaki High. She even forms a Monitoring Committee to try and block their activities. She is eventually forced to give up on this approach in Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'' after the School Idol Club starts performing individually in different locations and streaming their guerilla lives online. This makes them considerably harder to stop, and starts to harm the Association's reputation after the Monitoring Committee is seen trying to stop their events on the Club's livestreams by the online viewing audience.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: [[spoiler:In Chapter 27, Shioriko, Lanzhu and the protagonist are debating how Shioriko should execute her upcoming live performance, with Lanzhu enthusiastically pushing for a daring high-flying stunt while Shioriko insists on a regular dance routine. Lanzhu's persistence eventually pisses off Shioriko, causing her to snap at Lanzhu, and for the first time in the story Lanzhu is visibly distraught and runs off, being completely absent for the subsequent live show in spite of the effort she put into it.]]
* {{Narcissist}}: Her ImageSong, "Queendom", has her boasting about how special she is and how she is the best, along with emphasizing her MyWayOrTheHighway methodology.
* NewTransferStudent: She transfers into Nijigasaki from Hong Kong after being inspired to be a school idol from watching performances by its School Idol Club.
* ThePerfectionist: Lanzhu always tries to make herself perfect and urges others to do so as well.
* PetTheDog: She's noticeably a lot nicer to the protagonist after Chapter 25 for no clear reason. She allows the protagonist to watch her practice in the middle of the night in Chapter 26, and in Chapter 27 she reveals to the protagonist that seeing her keep notes on the Club members inspired her to copy her and create her own notebook analyzing both the Association's and the Club's performances.
* RapunzelHair: Also goes down to her lower back like Setsuna, Shizuku, and Kanata.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: Lanzhu comes from an incredibly affluent family and throws money around faster than even Mari can for the most ridiculous things. As a result, she's not really used to how regular people do things and tries to rope them into her way of thinking by spending extravagantly.
* RoyalBrat: Being the chairwoman's daughter means she can get away with her {{Jerkass}} behavior.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: She uses her position as the chairwoman's daughter to get her way, while disregarding rules that other students have to follow. To wit, she starts her own school idol club and attempts to dismantle the existing one, while creating a Monitoring Committee to try and prevent its members from practicing idol activities. Lanzhu's connections are such that despite Shioriko's position as StudentCouncilPresident, the latter is unable to do anything about the former's behavior.
* SkilledButNaive: Similarly to Shioriko prior to her CharacterDevelopment, Lanzhu is a newcomer to the field of school idols, but quickly demonstrates that she has indisputable skill. However, Lanzhu has a skewed perception of what being a school idol is about, and is quick to assume that it involves utilizing professional resources and backing personnel, which goes against the inherently amateur nature of the field. She also believes that it is easy to win over people to her side by bribing them with expensive amenities, and demonstrates genuine confusion when this instead winds up driving away those people.
* StartMyOwn: She comes to Nijigasaki High to be a school idol, after being inspired to do so by the performances put on by the school's idol club. However, rather than joining said club, she instead opts to create her own club and aims to forcefully disband the existing one.
* StealingTheCredit: Kasumi accuses Lanzhu of taking the credit for the School Idol Festival, which was the work of µ's, Aqours, and the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, after onlookers for Lanzhu's performance witness it and believe that she was responsible. The protagonist, however, takes a more nuanced view and believes that said onlookers were outsiders who were unaware of Lanzhu starting her own club at Nijigasaki, and hence conflated the activities of her School Idol Association with that of the Club. For her part, Lanzhu never actually claimed any sort of credit for the School Idol Festival.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: People correctly guessed that the chairwoman is her mother based on their similarities.
* {{Squee}}: Towards the members of the Club, except for TheProtagonist whom she dislikes. This is likely because, despite her attempts to disband the School Idol Club, its members were still the people who inspired her to become a school idol in the first place.
* TalentedButTrained: Lanzhu is naturally gifted, but to achieve her astronomical standards for perfection she works constantly to polish her skills and learn new crafts. She also attempts to impart this to others by advising them on how they can improve, similarly to Shioriko and the protagonist, but because of her inherent talent she often forgets the fact that many people are not as capable as her.
* TechnicianVersusPerformer: She creates this dynamic with the School Idol Club, being the technician to their performer. She believes that school idols can only thrive if they have the most profession backing, including but not limited to costume design, songwriting, and choreography, while also indulging in expensive ameneties and meals. She also takes a pragmatic approach to school idols, and believes that only the best one can stand on stage as a center, reducing all other members to backup dancers.
* TokenMinority: She's Chinese.
* TokenRichStudent: The school idols of Nijigasaki High aren't exactly poor but similar to Mari, Lanzhu is the only one whose wealth is focused on. Unlike Mari, however, Lanzhu is more willing to spend money even for the smallest of things.
* TookALevelInKindness: She [[CharacterizationMarchesOn inexplicably]] becomes nicer over the course of the story without any CharacterDevelopment whatsoever, giving the protagonist some PetTheDog moments, no longer being hostile to the Club and no longer trying to make the girls join the Association by force.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: According to Shioriko, Lanzhu is this. To wit, Shioriko explains to the protagonist that Lanzhu has no bad intentions, and did what she did because she believed her actions would make others happy. Namely, Lanzhu genuinely thinks that providing school idols with the best amenities and production staff is the best way to make them shine. However, she takes a heavy-handed approach in executing said beliefs, namely by trying to disband the School Idol Club and prohibit its activities to force its members to adopt her approach. That said, her poor ability at conveying her good intentions leads others to dislike her, while her self-absorbed behavior prevents her from realizing that she is repelling the people that she wants to help.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Non-fatal examples.
** She attempts to recruit the members of the School Idol Club to her Association, but is dismissive of the protagonist upon meeting them for the first time in-person, and states that their presence is unnecessary, given that she already has Mia to write her club's songs.
** In Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'', she instructs Shioriko to disband the Monitoring Committee after the School Idol Club starts streaming its guerilla lives online, and this approach makes them considerably harder to stop.
[[/folder]]

----

!Others/Supporting Characters
[[folder:Nana Nakagawa]]
[[quoteright:235:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_nana_7.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/TomoriKusunoki
\\\
The StudentCouncilPresident of Nijigasaki High School, whose no-nonsense and hard-working personality belies her deepest passions and encourages her to live a double life.

For tropes relating to her, see "Setsuna Yuki".

----
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Haruka Konoe]]
[[quoteright:188:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_haruka_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:188:[[labelnote:Click here to see her appearance in [=NijiYon=] #77]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_haruka_konoe.png]][[/labelnote]]
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' November 11 (Scorpio)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' A
-->'''Height:''' 154cm
-->'''Hobby:''' Helping my big sister
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KaedeHondo
\\\
Kanata's younger sister and a school idol from Shinonome Academy. Unlike her perpetually-sleepy older sister, Haruka is very hard-working and upbeat, ready for anything at a moment's notice, especially when it comes to school idol activities. Due to attending different schools, Haruka is rarely ever seen by Kanata's friends, but by sheer serendipity Haruka occasionally has a chance to meet the school idols her sister always hangs out with.
----
* AllWorkVsAllPlay: In ''SIF'', she's the Work to her sister Haruka's Play. Averted in the anime due to Kanata's drastic AdaptationPersonalityChange.
* AngerBornOfWorry: She snaps at Kanata for the latter insisting that she'll still continue working even harder for Haruka's sake when Haruka made it clear that her own decision to [[spoiler: quit being a school idol]] was so Kanata wouldn't be so overwhelmed with her responsibilities anymore.
* AscendedExtra: While she didn't place high enough in the poll to become a member of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, she still gets featured in Nijigasaki material (the {{Yonkoma}}, game, and anime) anyway by virtue of having a familial relation to Kanata, who ''did'' become a Nijigasaki member.
* FamilyThemeNaming: "Haruka kanata" means "faraway."
* GirlishPigtails: She always has pigtails as shown in her unidolized and idolized cards, and for all her appearances in Nijigasaki-related content. It visually marks her as the younger Konoe sister.
* IconicOutfit: Her September 2017 idolized N card outfit, which she is seen wearing in almost all of her appearances in ''Nijigasaki'' material.
* SiblingYinYang: Haruka is energetic and hard-working, while her sister Kanata is a LazyBum who always seems sleepy.
* SignificantBirthDate: She is briefly seen with ProductPlacement for Pocky, a famous Japanese brand of thin, frosting-dipped biscuit sticks, in the anime. Her birthday, November 11th, is also known as "Pocky Day" in Japan.
* UnseenNoMore: She gets mentioned by Kanata a few times in ''ALL STARS'' and the Nijigasaki-related Side Stories in ''SIF'' but she never actually appears, making her TheGhost. She was revealed in the "Nijiyon" {{Webcomic}} {{Yonkoma}} using her original ''SIF'' design but because the work is LooseCanon, it means her appearance there is questionable. She finally appears properly in Chapter 14 of Kanata's bond story in ''ALL STARS'', and went to appear in episode 7 of the anime.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Hanpen / Fishpuff]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hanpen_love_live_nijigasaki_high_school_idol_club_202971_7.jpg]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Anna Mugiho (Japanese)
\\\
A stray cat that Rina found roaming the grounds of Nijgasaki High.
----
* AdaptationDeviation: Hanpen is still a stray in both the game and the anime, but while Hanpen ends up getting unofficially adopted by Rina and kept in the School Idol Club's room (with Shioriko's permission), in the anime Hanpen is appointed as the school's "stroll commissioner" and essentially becomes the school pet.
* AmbiguousGender: Hanpen's gender is unknown; the cat isn't referred to with any gendered wording in Japanese, and the English subtitles use they/them pronouns.
* AscendedExtra: Just slightly, as the anime at least gives Hanpen scenes, while in the game Hanpen exclusively appears in Rina's Bond Story and never on-screen except for one specific image.
* CaligulasHorse: After discovering that neither Rina nor Ai could take take Hanpen home with them, Setsuna appoints the cat as the student council's official trekking officer, [[LoopholeAbuse exploiting a loophole]] so that it could remain at the school.
* DubNameChange: The English version of ''ALL STARS'' translated Hanpen's name as "Fishpuff". Notably, the cat is one of the few characters in the franchise to have a different official English name from its original Japanese one.
* EdibleThemeNaming: Rina named the cat "Hanpen" after its favorite food.
* FastballSpecial: In Episode 2 of the anime, Kasumi throws Hanpen at Setsuna in order to distract the latter, so she could sneak into the student council's office to steal the nameplate for the School Idol Club.
* FreeRangePets: Was initially found roaming the grounds of Nijigasaki High, with Rina sneaking it food every so often.
* HappilyAdopted: Episode 13 of the anime suggests that the student council has essentially done this for Hanpen, as its vice president is seen caring for the cat in a brief scene during the ending performance of the School Idol Festival.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: As its name suggests, the cat is fond of hanpen, a form of Japanese fish cake.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Satsuki and Uzuki]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2021_03_02_044639.png]]
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KanaIchinose and Rico Sasaki
\\\
A pair of twins who are members of the Student Council. In ''ALL STARS'', they are members of the school's Monitoring Committee established by Shioriko (at Lanzhu's behest) to interfere with the activites of the School Idol Club.
----
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: There's very little to distinguish the two outside of their voices as the two have separate voice actresses, and from the way their bangs are parted.
* CanonImmigrant: They originally appeared in the anime, and later debut in ''ALL STARS'' in Chapter 20.
* DayInTheLimelight: Despite being incredibly minor side characters, they get fleshed out a bit in Shioriko's Bond Story, where they help Shioriko and the protagonist create a short film for the Nijigasaki Film Festival.
* HeroWorshipper: Both of them are big fans of Shioriko, and are quick to look for ways to improve her as a school idol. They also hold Setsuna in high regard, and lay praise on her thick, despite her loss to Lanzhu in Chapter 24 of ''ALL STARS''. That said, they still see Shioriko as inferior to Setsuna and ultimately aim to have the latter surpass the former.
* {{Meganekko}}: They both wear glasses.
* NamedByTheAdaptation: {{Inverted}}. They were originally nameless in the anime and are only referred to in the credits as the "Student Council Secretaries", but are given the names "Satsuki" and "Uzuki" in ''ALL STARS''.
* PunchClockVillain: Satsuki and Uzuki are actually school idol fans themselves, but since they're required to do their duty as the Monitoring Committee, they have to chase off the Club members when they put on a performance. However, to help out the Club, Shioriko instructed them to wait until the Club has actually finished a performance before chasing them away.
* SingleMindedTwins: They're twins who are hardly ever seen apart and essentially have the same personality.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: They are essentially the Nijigasaki version of the traditional "friend trio" that the other groups have, except they come as a pair and are tied to Shioriko rather than the protagonist.
* ThemeTwinNaming: Their names are both [[TemporalThemeNaming traditional Japanese names for months]]; "Satsuki" is the traditional name for May and "Uzuki" is the traditional name for April.
[[/folder]]

!''ALL STARS'' Exclusive Others/Supporting Characters
[[folder:Kaoruko '''(Spoilers for Chapter 17)''']]

!Kaoruko Mifune

[[quoteright:209:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sifas_kaoruko.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/YokoHikasa

Shioriko's older sister, Kaoruko is a former school idol and the previous head of the School Idol Festival Committee. With the bulk of the Committee's members graduating, Kaoruko finds herself unable to host the next School Idol Festival, but allows her position to be passed to the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club and gives them her blessing. Her relationship with Shioriko forms the crux of the latter's actions throughout Season 1.

----
* BrokenPedestal: It's revealed that Kaoruko was a shoo-in for the next head of the Mifune family, but she gave up the role in favor of following her dream of being a school idol. Shioriko, who believed that success makes people happy, interpreted this action as her sister throwing away her chance at success for a fleeting dream, and came to resent both her and school idols in turn.
* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Season 2 reveals that Kaoruko has moved on to being a teacher and has returned to Nijigasaki to take up a temporary student teaching position for training.]]
* CuteLittleFangs: Like her younger sister, Shioriko.
* FamilyThemeNaming: Like her sister, her name is a normal Japanese name with the word "ko" tacked on at the end.
* FanGirl: Of school idols. It's the main reason why she founded the School Idol Festival.
* MulticoloredHair: A mix of black and red hair. The red parts are most likely dyed since her sister doesn't have them.
* SiblingYinYang:
** A RedOniBlueOni type. Kaoruko is warm and supportive while Shioriko, before her CharacterDevelopment, is cold and pragmatic.
** Chapter 27 reveals [[spoiler:that it's also a FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling type with Kaoruko being the foolish sister and Shioriko being the responsible and dutiful sister. When Kaoruko got into school idols, she neglected her studies at times and always slept late, requiring Shioriko to wake her up.]]
* StrongFamilyResemblance: It's easy to see that she and Shioriko are related even before the reveal.
* UnseenNoMore: Up until the final chapter of Season 1, Kaoruko is only mentioned by name or appearing in silhouette without actually being present. It's not until she shows up to the School Idol Festival that she appears in full and her connection with Shioriko is revealed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mai Natsukawa]]
[[quoteright:264:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sifas_mai.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/SatomiSato
\\\
A 3rd year school idol and the heir to the Natsukawa Photo Studio. She plans to retire as a school idol in order to pursue the family business. She appears in Emma's bond story.
----
* CommonalityConnection: Besides being fellow school idols, it turns out that the song she performs and the song that inspired Emma to be a school idol is the same.
* IdiotHair: Has one on top of her hair.
* ItWasAGift: Her song was inherited from her sempai, whose performance inspired Emma to be a school idol. [[spoiler: She later passes the song, "Aion no Uta", to Emma during her retirement live.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Misato Kawamoto]]
[[quoteright:199:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_misato.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/YuiIshikawa
\\\
A kind woman who serves as Ai's older sister figure. Although the two are not related by blood, their bond is deep enough for Ai to treat her like a relative. Despite her physical weakness, she supports Ai in all of her endeavors and plays a key role in her uprising as a school idol.
----
* ChildhoodFriends: With Ai.
* CoolBigSis: Ai looks up to her and calls her "Onee-san".
* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: Has brown hair and brown eyes.
* IllGirl: It's revealed later on that her fairly weak constitution caused her to be hospitalized often when she was younger. Ai would visit her in the hospital to cheer her up, which eventually caused Ai to develop her PungeonMaster habit when she realized that Misato found it funny.
* MotherlySidePlait: It highlights her gentle and caring personality.
* WhatTheHellHero: After Ai praises the Club for overcoming their obstacle of Lanzhu's oppresion of their Club, Misato bluntly asks Ai why she defected from the Club. This leads to Ai revealing her inferiority complex toward Setsuna, Kanata, and Kasumi.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Nijigasaki Chairwoman]]
[[quoteright:180:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_nijigasaki_chairwoman.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/{{Yukana}}
\\\
The chairwoman of Nijigasaki High School.
----
* StrongFamilyResemblance: People correctly guessed that she's Lanzhu's mother based on their similarities.

[[/folder]]

''Anything that has not been released in the Global version of the game should be spoiler-tagged. This page may also spoil parts of the'' Nijigasaki High School Idol Club ''anime and the second season of'' School idol festival ALL STARS''. Read at your own risk!''

[[folder:Lanzhu Zhong]]
[[quoteright:268:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_lanzhu.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Rose pink
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Akina Homoto

A Chinese-Japanese student from Hong Kong and the chairwoman's daughter. She transferred to Nijigasaki High to see her childhood friend, Shioriko Mifune. After being introduced to school idols, she created her own group, the School Idol Association, as she has her own approach on what school idols should strive to be.\\\

She serves as the antagonist of ''ALL STARS Season 2''.

* TheAce: Lanzhu is an exceptionally talented and hard-working individual, far more than most people, and her school idol performances are repeatedly stated as being top-class. [[spoiler:Chapter 28 reveals that she's actually a BrokenAce.]]
* AlphaBitch: Lanzhu has several hallmarks of this trope: rich, popular as a school idol, charismatic, ''incredibly'' petty and stuck up, and more than willing to abuse her position as the chairwoman’s daughter to get what she wants.
* AnimeChineseGirl: While her standard design looks like it could mostly fit in with the rest of the cast, her costume for "Queendom" plays the Chinese card pretty heavy-handedly, with her hairstyle being done up in odango hair and her outfit being a stylized {{qipao}} combined with regal-style wear like a BadassCape and thigh-high boots. She also strikes a stereotypical crane stance at the end of the song.
* ArcVillain: Of ''ALL STARS Season 2'', being the direct cause of the conflict faced by the School Idol Club.
* AscendedFanboy: She was inspired to become a school idol after watching the performances put on by the School Idol Club for the School Idol Festival, and transferred into Nijigasaki High. She then actively attempts to invoke this trope by creating the School Idol Association and trying to convince the school idols who inspired her to join it. However, she is only partially successful, as only Karin, Ai, and Shioriko (and Shizuku for a brief stint) actually take her up on this offer.
* BeautyMark: Below her right eye.
* BrokenAce: [[spoiler:Her CharacterFocus reveals that being so good at everything alienated her from other people and prevented her from forming lasting friendships, causing her to develop an IJustWantToHaveFriends complex and [[MyWayOrTheHighway communication issues.]] Shioriko became her [[OnlyFriend only]] ChildhoodFriend because Shioriko felt bad for Lanzhu and didn't want her to be lonely.]]
* BrokenPedestal: In a sense, the School Idol Club is this to her, as she was inspired to become a school idol herself after watching their performances. However, her perfectionist streak led to her deeming the very club that inspired her to be amateurish and inferior, and she now seeks its dismantlement.
* ButNotTooForeign: Her profile states that she's actually half-Japanese.
* CantTakeCriticism: In line with her narcissistic personality, she is unable to accept that her approach to being a school idol might be wrong, despite Shioriko and Mia trying to tell her otherwise.
* CatchPhrase: "冇問題" (pronounced as "Mou man tai"), which is Cantonese for "No problem".
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Flashbacks during Lanzhu's CharacterFocus episode reveal that [[spoiler:she's always idolized the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club when she first saw them at the School Idol Festival and dreamed of becoming friends with them, so she set up the Association for them so they could all join together and become even better school idols]]. This is bizarrely inconsistent with her early Season 2 behavior where she actively sought to ''ruin'' the Club to force the girls to join the Association and was downright nasty to the protagonist [[spoiler:despite the entire crux of her character being [[IJustWantToHaveFriends wanting to make friends with others]]]].
* ChildhoodFriends: With Shioriko Mifune.
* CharacterShilling: The other characters never fail to consistently remind the audience how "perfect" Lanzhu's performance as a school idol is. This even extends to characters who are outright antagonistic towards her, such as Kasumi. Shioriko also sticks up for her and claims that she has no bad intentions, a view that is also later shared by the protagonist. This is despite the fact that the former has to constantly work to mitigate the impact of Lanzhu's behavior.
* CoatCape: Her school idol costume has one.
* CustomUniform: She wears a distinctive uniform unlike those worn by the other students, consisting of a gold-lined red cardigan marked with the Nijigasaki High insignia in place of the standard black blazer, and her winter uniform shirt is black instead of the standard white shirt.
* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: [[spoiler:She proves her ace status when she cleanly wins the tournament in Chapter 24 by defeating both Kasumi and Setsuna.]]
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Her approach to school idols is that they should have professionals backing them up in terms of songwriting, costume design, and choreography, and she views this to be the best way to express herself as a school idol. This perspective directly clashes with the notion previously espoused by the franchise that school idol performances are ''inherently amateur productions'', with said idols doing all of these tasks [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything on their own]] in-house, which is part of their appeal.
* EvilCounterpart: To Kotori, being the daughter of a high ranking official of her school (in Lanzhu's case, she's the daughter of Nijigasaki High's chairwoman), but unlike Kotori, flaunts and abuses her status for all its worth.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Her self-absorbed attitude tends to rub both her longtime friends, Shioriko and Mia, the wrong way, with both of them finding her difficult to deal with at times. However, both assist her in her school idol activities because they feel obligated to her on account of their friendship.
* {{Foil}}:
** Both Lanzhu and the protagonist are the leaders of their respective School Idol Clubs who have a great love of school idols and attract the people around them due to their love. However, the protagonist personally handles most of the hard work herself, writes all of the songs and dances, prefers to stay in the background to allow her friends to shine, and has a high level of charisma and leadership. Lanzhu, conversely, delegates all of the work to others, is enamored with the spotlight above all else (to the point of reducing the other members of her Association to backup dancers) and refuses to admit that anyone is better than her, and lacks any sense of charisma or tact, preferring to entice potential members with her top-of-the-line facilities and production values.
** As a school idol, she also serves as a contrast to Ayumu in many aspects. While Ayumu is kind and tender to most people and lacks self-esteem, Lanzhu is narcissistic, snobby to people she doesn't like, and has huge amounts of ego and confidence in her own abilities. Ayumu loves her childhood friend, the protagonist, and is obviously close to her, whereas Lanzhu openly dislikes the protagonist and isn't afraid to show it. Ayumu considers herself largely ordinary while Lanzhu considers herself very special. There's also how they first became school idols: while Ayumu also saw the same school idol performance that inspired the protagonist to love school idols and support them, she initially wasn't as interested in school idols and only became one because she wanted to impress her childhood friend and get her attention, though she eventually grew to genuinely love becoming one later on. Lanzhu immediately took an interest in school idols after watching the School Idol Festival and quickly became one herself.
* FoodAsBribe: She frequently holds expensive luncheons and readily invites the School Idol Club to them as a quick way to try and sway them to her side. However, given that it is implied that she might genuinely want their friendship, it could also be her way of invoking TastesLikeFriendship as well.
* GoodColorsEvilColors: Being the only character in the franchise who wears a black dress shirt as part of her uniform may be emblematic of this.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Being Chinese, she applies some uses of it, such as changing the name of the School Idol Club to "School Idol Club" but with the Japanese "doukokai" swapped out for a Chinese "bu". Her first solo also has the distinction of having English, Mandarin, ''and'' Cantonese phrases spliced in, making it the first song in the franchise to use three languages at once, as Mandarin and Cantonese are separate dialects of the Chinese language.
* HateSink: Subverted. She has an unlikeable personality by default (being a petty and stuck-up AlphaBitch who CantTakeCriticism) and she attempts to disband the School Idol Club by forcing the girls to join her Association, only for her to reduce them to backup dancers with little guarantee of performing individually, and when she fails to win over all 10 members of the club, she goes to ridiculous lengths to prevent them from practicing or putting on shows, and she abuses her status as the chairwoman’s daughter to get away with it all. Additionally, she’s ''very'' dismissive and intolerant towards the protagonist, telling her to her face that she’s boring and useless to the Association. However, the narrative ''really'' wants the audience to know how perfect she is, with the other characters ''constantly'' [[CharacterShilling praising her perfection even though we barely get a glimpse of her performances]], [[spoiler:she’s EasilyForgiven by the club after Shioriko reveals her backstory in Chapter 28]], and despite the awful way Lanzhu treats her and the club, the protagonist thinks she’s a good person with no bad intentions.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: One way she tries to interfere with the School Idol Club is to create a Monitoring Committee to stop their guerilla lives. The Club eventually responds by livestreaming said lives online, which means that any actions made by the Monitoring Committee against them will be seen by their online viewing audience. This ultimately winds up garnering the Club a reputation as an underdog and thus more support, while harming the perception of the Association among school idol fans. Lanzhu is finally forced to disband the Monitoring Committee in Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'' after this series of events causes more harm to the Association than good.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: [[spoiler:Heavily implied by a specific scene in Chapter 27, after Shioriko yells at Lanzhu for designing a routine that only she's capable of. [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Lanzhu starts behaving strangely immediately afterwards]], runs off, and doesn't appear for the rest of the Chapter.]]
* IJustWantToHaveFriends:
** Implied. Despite trying to disband the School Idol Club, she still attempts to win over its members to her side by offering them expensive gifts and meals, and is quick to refer to anyone who shows a slight bit of friendliness towards as her "best friend". This suggests that despite her demeanor, she secretly desires some form of companionship from others. However, her pushy personality and poor treatment of the protagonist wind up driving away the very people she is trying to attract. Because she CantTakeCriticism, she fails to see exactly why her approach is failing, despite Mia clearly spelling it out for her.
** More directly implied in Chapter 27, when Lanzhu shows the protagonist her own notebook about the Association members and she discovers a section detailing a huge laundry list of fun things she wants to do with the Club members after they join her Association. The protagonist wonders why Lanzhu can't already do those things with the Club, but Lanzhu insists on the girls joining the Association before cutting her explanation short.
* InvincibleVillain: Being both [[TheAce the best school idol in Nijigasaki]] and the most powerful student in the entire school makes Lanzhu extremely difficult to contend with for the otherwise-average School Idol Club girls. Not once does she take any meaningful losses besides disbanding the Monitoring Committee, and not only do the Association's shows utterly eclipse the Club's in sheer technical prowess and execution, but [[spoiler:she manages to outstrip even Setsuna's popularity among the student population, who is otherwise FamedInStory as having skills on par with professional idols]].
* {{Jerkass}}: Lanzhu essentially has all of Shioriko's worst traits pre-CharacterDevelopment but instead of being an ice-cold ObstructiveBureaucrat she's just an asshole. Shioriko maintains that Lanzhu doesn't really mean harm but doesn't have a better way to express herself to others.
* JerkassToOne: She's egocentric and selfish, but at the very least, she's genuinely friendly towards the school idols even though her actions caused the original club a lot of grief in the game's second season. However, she dislikes the protagonist and is intentionally rude and dismissive towards her especially in their interactions together. It's notable that the protagonist is the only member of the original school idol club that Lanzhu clearly doesn't want to invite over to the new one she formed. [[spoiler:A conversation between the protagonist and Mia in Chapter 28 has Mia suggesting that Lanzhu may have acted this way because she was jealous of how the protagonist was essentially the center of attention for the Club.]]
* KickTheDog: Aside from preventing the School Idol Club from reestablishing itself through any means possible and taking away the crowd Kasumi gathered for the guerilla live the Club put up, there's how she treats the protagonist when they actually meet face-to-face for the first time: telling her how uninteresting she is after learning firsthand how she was the original president of the School Idol Club and then having the gall to tell her how she has no use for someone like the protagonist in her School Idol Association thanks to Mia's presence making her unnecessary. Notably, after being told all that, the protagonist's self-esteem takes a bit of a hit until Shioriko reassures and comforts her afterwards.
* LackOfEmpathy: Like Shioriko, this is her main flaw. She believes that school idols should have the best environment and staff to become the best that they can be and dismisses any comment that it could be wrong.
** In Chapter 22, [[spoiler:she doesn't even realize that Mia is mentally stressed out. When she goes missing and everyone is worried about her, she just shrugs it off and thinks Mia is just making a song for her]].
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: She is introduced in Chapter 19, the last installment of the first season of ''ALL STARS'', alongside Mia.
* LethalChef: She claims to be good at basically anything, but the moment Kaoruko forces her to do her own cooking it becomes plainly obvious that she's never set foot in a kitchen a day in her life. Hilariously, ''Setsuna'' of all people is impressed by Lanzhu's miserable attempt at cooking, and it ultimately falls upon SupremeChef Kanata to save their dinner.
* LonelyAtTheTop: Despite being the most powerful student in Nijigasaki, almost no one in the Association likes her. Shioriko only joins her Association to rein her in (unsuccessfully), Mia makes her displeasure clear for being dragged to Japan just to be her personal songwriter, the Monitoring Committee are secretly on the original Club's side.
* LonelyRichKid: Played with; although she is both lonely and a rich kid, her loneliness isn't related to her money. However, she does try to use money to buy friendships, treating potential friends to expensive luncheons and the like.
* MyWayOrTheHighway: Lanzhu initially attempts to prevent the School Idol Club from carrying out their activities, wanting her Association to be the only group of school idols in Nijigasaki High. She even forms a Monitoring Committee to try and block their activities. She is eventually forced to give up on this approach in Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'' after the School Idol Club starts performing individually in different locations and streaming their guerilla lives online. This makes them considerably harder to stop, and starts to harm the Association's reputation after the Monitoring Committee is seen trying to stop their events on the Club's livestreams by the online viewing audience.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: [[spoiler:In Chapter 27, Shioriko, Lanzhu and the protagonist are debating how Shioriko should execute her upcoming live performance, with Lanzhu enthusiastically pushing for a daring high-flying stunt while Shioriko insists on a regular dance routine. Lanzhu's persistence eventually pisses off Shioriko, causing her to snap at Lanzhu, and for the first time in the story Lanzhu is visibly distraught and runs off, being completely absent for the subsequent live show in spite of the effort she put into it.]]
* {{Narcissist}}: Her ImageSong, "Queendom", has her boasting about how special she is and how she is the best, along with emphasizing her MyWayOrTheHighway methodology.
* NewTransferStudent: She transfers into Nijigasaki from Hong Kong after being inspired to be a school idol from watching performances by its School Idol Club.
* ThePerfectionist: Lanzhu always tries to make herself perfect and urges others to do so as well.
* PetTheDog: She's noticeably a lot nicer to the protagonist after Chapter 25 for no clear reason. She allows the protagonist to watch her practice in the middle of the night in Chapter 26, and in Chapter 27 she reveals to the protagonist that seeing her keep notes on the Club members inspired her to copy her and create her own notebook analyzing both the Association's and the Club's performances.
* RapunzelHair: Also goes down to her lower back like Setsuna, Shizuku, and Kanata.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: Lanzhu comes from an incredibly affluent family and throws money around faster than even Mari can for the most ridiculous things. As a result, she's not really used to how regular people do things and tries to rope them into her way of thinking by spending extravagantly.
* RoyalBrat: Being the chairwoman's daughter means she can get away with her {{Jerkass}} behavior.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: She uses her position as the chairwoman's daughter to get her way, while disregarding rules that other students have to follow. To wit, she starts her own school idol club and attempts to dismantle the existing one, while creating a Monitoring Committee to try and prevent its members from practicing idol activities. Lanzhu's connections are such that despite Shioriko's position as StudentCouncilPresident, the latter is unable to do anything about the former's behavior.
* SkilledButNaive: Similarly to Shioriko prior to her CharacterDevelopment, Lanzhu is a newcomer to the field of school idols, but quickly demonstrates that she has indisputable skill. However, Lanzhu has a skewed perception of what being a school idol is about, and is quick to assume that it involves utilizing professional resources and backing personnel, which goes against the inherently amateur nature of the field. She also believes that it is easy to win over people to her side by bribing them with expensive amenities, and demonstrates genuine confusion when this instead winds up driving away those people.
* StartMyOwn: She comes to Nijigasaki High to be a school idol, after being inspired to do so by the performances put on by the school's idol club. However, rather than joining said club, she instead opts to create her own club and aims to forcefully disband the existing one.
* StealingTheCredit: Kasumi accuses Lanzhu of taking the credit for the School Idol Festival, which was the work of µ's, Aqours, and the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, after onlookers for Lanzhu's performance witness it and believe that she was responsible. The protagonist, however, takes a more nuanced view and believes that said onlookers were outsiders who were unaware of Lanzhu starting her own club at Nijigasaki, and hence conflated the activities of her School Idol Association with that of the Club. For her part, Lanzhu never actually claimed any sort of credit for the School Idol Festival.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: People correctly guessed that the chairwoman is her mother based on their similarities.
* {{Squee}}: Towards the members of the Club, except for TheProtagonist whom she dislikes. This is likely because, despite her attempts to disband the School Idol Club, its members were still the people who inspired her to become a school idol in the first place.
* TalentedButTrained: Lanzhu is naturally gifted, but to achieve her astronomical standards for perfection she works constantly to polish her skills and learn new crafts. She also attempts to impart this to others by advising them on how they can improve, similarly to Shioriko and the protagonist, but because of her inherent talent she often forgets the fact that many people are not as capable as her.
* TechnicianVersusPerformer: She creates this dynamic with the School Idol Club, being the technician to their performer. She believes that school idols can only thrive if they have the most profession backing, including but not limited to costume design, songwriting, and choreography, while also indulging in expensive ameneties and meals. She also takes a pragmatic approach to school idols, and believes that only the best one can stand on stage as a center, reducing all other members to backup dancers.
* TokenMinority: She's Chinese.
* TokenRichStudent: The school idols of Nijigasaki High aren't exactly poor but similar to Mari, Lanzhu is the only one whose wealth is focused on. Unlike Mari, however, Lanzhu is more willing to spend money even for the smallest of things.
* TookALevelInKindness: She [[CharacterizationMarchesOn inexplicably]] becomes nicer over the course of the story without any CharacterDevelopment whatsoever, giving the protagonist some PetTheDog moments, no longer being hostile to the Club and no longer trying to make the girls join the Association by force.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: According to Shioriko, Lanzhu is this. To wit, Shioriko explains to the protagonist that Lanzhu has no bad intentions, and did what she did because she believed her actions would make others happy. Namely, Lanzhu genuinely thinks that providing school idols with the best amenities and production staff is the best way to make them shine. However, she takes a heavy-handed approach in executing said beliefs, namely by trying to disband the School Idol Club and prohibit its activities to force its members to adopt her approach. That said, her poor ability at conveying her good intentions leads others to dislike her, while her self-absorbed behavior prevents her from realizing that she is repelling the people that she wants to help.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Non-fatal examples.
** She attempts to recruit the members of the School Idol Club to her Association, but is dismissive of the protagonist upon meeting them for the first time in-person, and states that their presence is unnecessary, given that she already has Mia to write her club's songs.
** In Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'', she instructs Shioriko to disband the Monitoring Committee after the School Idol Club starts streaming its guerilla lives online, and this approach makes them considerably harder to stop.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Shioriko Mifune]]
[[quoteright:197:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shioriko.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Jade green
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' October 5 (Libra)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' AB
-->'''Height:''' 160cm
-->'''Three Sizes:''' B79/W56/H78
-->'''Symbol:''' Bookmark
-->'''Voiced by:''' Moeka Koizumi
\\\
An earnest first year who challenged Setsuna for the position of StudentCouncilPresident.\\\

With a strong desire to help anyone and everyone live their best lives, Shioriko wants to improve Nijigasaki High to better prepare its students for their future.\\\

However, she does not have a good impression of school idols, believing them to be the "embodiment of uselessness". One of her goals if she becomes student council president is to abolish the school idol club and spread its current members to other clubs that would be better suited for their talents.

----

!''ALL STARS - Season 1'' Others/Supporting Characters

[[folder:Kaoruko '''(Spoilers for Chapter 17)''']]

!Kaoruko Mifune

[[quoteright:209:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sifas_kaoruko.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/YokoHikasa

Shioriko's older sister, Kaoruko is a former school idol and the previous head of the School Idol Festival Committee. With the bulk of the Committee's members graduating, Kaoruko finds herself unable to host the next School Idol Festival, but allows her position to be passed to the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club and gives them her blessing. Her relationship with Shioriko forms the crux of the latter's actions throughout Season 1.

* BrokenPedestal: It's revealed that Kaoruko was a shoo-in for the next head of the Mifune family, but she gave up the role in favor of following her dream of being a school idol. Shioriko, who believed that success makes people happy, interpreted this action as her sister throwing away her chance at success for a fleeting dream, and came to resent both her and school idols in turn.
* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Season 2 reveals that Kaoruko has moved on to being a teacher and has returned to Nijigasaki to take up a temporary student teaching position for training.]]
* CuteLittleFangs: Like her younger sister, Shioriko.
* FamilyThemeNaming: Like her sister, her name is a normal Japanese name with the word "ko" tacked on at the end.
* FanGirl: Of school idols. It's the main reason why she founded the School Idol Festival.
* MulticoloredHair: A mix of black and red hair. The red parts are most likely dyed since her sister doesn't have them.
* SiblingYinYang:
** A RedOniBlueOni type. Kaoruko is warm and supportive while Shioriko, before her CharacterDevelopment, is cold and pragmatic.
** Chapter 27 reveals [[spoiler:that it's also a FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling type with Kaoruko being the foolish sister and Shioriko being the responsible and dutiful sister. When Kaoruko got into school idols, she neglected her studies at times and always slept late, requiring Shioriko to wake her up.]]
* StrongFamilyResemblance: It's easy to see that she and Shioriko are related even before the reveal.
* UnseenNoMore: Up until the final chapter of Season 1, Kaoruko is only mentioned by name or appearing in silhouette without actually being present. It's not until she shows up to the School Idol Festival that she appears in full and her connection with Shioriko is revealed.

[[folder:Haruka Konoe]]
[[quoteright:188:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_haruka_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:188:[[labelnote:Click here to see her appearance in [=NijiYon=] #77]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_haruka_konoe.png]][[/labelnote]]
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' November 11 (Scorpio)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' A
-->'''Height:''' 154cm
-->'''Hobby:''' Helping my big sister
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KaedeHondo

Kanata's younger sister and a school idol from Shinonome Academy. Unlike her perpetually-sleepy older sister, Haruka is very hard-working and upbeat, ready for anything at a moment's notice, especially when it comes to school idol activities. Due to attending different schools, Haruka is rarely ever seen by Kanata's friends, but by sheer serendipity Haruka occasionally has a chance to meet the school idols her sister always hangs out with.

* AllWorkVsAllPlay: In ''SIF'', she's the Work to her sister Haruka's Play. Averted in the anime due to Kanata's drastic AdaptationPersonalityChange.
* AngerBornOfWorry: She snaps at Kanata for the latter insisting that she'll still continue working even harder for Haruka's sake when Haruka made it clear that her own decision to [[spoiler: quit being a school idol]] was so Kanata wouldn't be so overwhelmed with her responsibilities anymore.
* AscendedExtra: While she didn't place high enough in the poll to become a member of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, she still gets featured in Nijigasaki material (the {{Yonkoma}}, game, and anime) anyway by virtue of having a familial relation to Kanata, who ''did'' become a Nijigasaki member.
* FamilyThemeNaming: "Haruka kanata" means "faraway."
* GirlishPigtails: She always has pigtails as shown in her unidolized and idolized cards, and for all her appearances in Nijigasaki-related content. It visually marks her as the younger Konoe sister.
* IconicOutfit: Her September 2017 idolized N card outfit, which she is seen wearing in almost all of her appearances in ''Nijigasaki'' material.
* SiblingYinYang: Haruka is energetic and hard-working, while her sister Kanata is a LazyBum who always seems sleepy.
* SignificantBirthDate: She is briefly seen with ProductPlacement for Pocky, a famous Japanese brand of thin, frosting-dipped biscuit sticks, in the anime. Her birthday, November 11th, is also known as "Pocky Day" in Japan.
* UnseenNoMore: She gets mentioned by Kanata a few times in ''ALL STARS'' and the Nijigasaki-related Side Stories in ''SIF'' but she never actually appears, making her TheGhost. She was revealed in the "Nijiyon" {{Webcomic}} {{Yonkoma}} using her original ''SIF'' design but because the work is LooseCanon, it means her appearance there is questionable. She finally appears properly in Chapter 14 of Kanata's bond story in ''ALL STARS'', and went to appear in episode 7 of the anime.

[[folder:Mai Natsukawa]]
[[quoteright:264:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sifas_mai.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/SatomiSato

A 3rd year school idol and the heir to the Natsukawa Photo Studio. She plans to retire as a school idol in order to pursue the family business. She appears in Emma's bond story.

* CommonalityConnection: Besides being fellow school idols, it turns out that the song she performs and the song that inspired Emma to be a school idol is the same.
* IdiotHair: Has one on top of her hair.
* ItWasAGift: Her song was inherited from her sempai, whose performance inspired Emma to be a school idol. [[spoiler: She later passes the song, "Aion no Uta", to Emma during her retirement live.]]

[[folder:Misato Kawamoto]]
[[quoteright:199:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_misato.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/YuiIshikawa
\\\
A kind woman who serves as Ai's older sister figure. Although the two are not related by blood, their bond is deep enough for Ai to treat her like a relative. Despite her physical weakness, she supports Ai in all of her endeavors and plays a key role in her uprising as a school idol.

* ChildhoodFriends: With Ai.
* CoolBigSis: Ai looks up to her and calls her "Onee-san".
* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: Has brown hair and brown eyes.
* IllGirl: It's revealed later on that her fairly weak constitution caused her to be hospitalized often when she was younger. Ai would visit her in the hospital to cheer her up, which eventually caused Ai to develop her PungeonMaster habit when she realized that Misato found it funny.
* MotherlySidePlait: It highlights her gentle and caring personality.
* WhatTheHellHero: After Ai praises the Club for overcoming their obstacle of Lanzhu's oppresion of their Club, Misato bluntly asks Ai why she defected from the Club. This leads to Ai revealing her inferiority complex toward Setsuna, Kanata, and Kasumi.

[[folder:Hanpen / Fishpuff]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hanpen_love_live_nijigasaki_high_school_idol_club_202971_7.jpg]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Anna Mugiho (Japanese)

A stray cat that Rina found roaming the grounds of Nijgasaki High.

* AdaptationDeviation: Hanpen is still a stray in both the game and the anime, but while Hanpen ends up getting unofficially adopted by Rina and kept in the School Idol Club's room (with Shioriko's permission), in the anime Hanpen is appointed as the school's "stroll commissioner" and essentially becomes the school pet.
* AmbiguousGender: Hanpen's gender is unknown; the cat isn't referred to with any gendered wording in Japanese, and the English subtitles use they/them pronouns.
* AscendedExtra: Just slightly, as the anime at least gives Hanpen scenes, while in the game Hanpen exclusively appears in Rina's Bond Story and never on-screen except for one specific image.
* CaligulasHorse: After discovering that neither Rina nor Ai could take take Hanpen home with them, Setsuna appoints the cat as the student council's official trekking officer, [[LoopholeAbuse exploiting a loophole]] so that it could remain at the school.
* DubNameChange: The English version of ''ALL STARS'' translated Hanpen's name as "Fishpuff". Notably, the cat is one of the few characters in the franchise to have a different official English name from its original Japanese one.
* EdibleThemeNaming: Rina named the cat "Hanpen" after its favorite food.
* FastballSpecial: In Episode 2 of the anime, Kasumi throws Hanpen at Setsuna in order to distract the latter, so she could sneak into the student council's office to steal the nameplate for the School Idol Club.
* FreeRangePets: Was initially found roaming the grounds of Nijigasaki High, with Rina sneaking it food every so often.
* HappilyAdopted: Episode 13 of the anime suggests that the student council has essentially done this for Hanpen, as its vice president is seen caring for the cat in a brief scene during the ending performance of the School Idol Festival.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: As its name suggests, the cat is fond of hanpen, a form of Japanese fish cake.

!''ALL STARS - Season 2'' Others/Supporting Characters

[[folder:Nijigasaki Chairwoman]]
[[quoteright:180:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_nijigasaki_chairwoman.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/{{Yukana}}

The chairwoman of Nijigasaki High School.

* StrongFamilyResemblance: People correctly guessed that she's Lanzhu's mother based on their similarities.

[[folder:Satsuki and Uzuki]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2021_03_02_044639.png]]
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KanaIchinose and Rico Sasaki

A pair of twins who are members of the Student Council. In ''ALL STARS'', they are members of the school's Monitoring Committee established by Shioriko (at Lanzhu's behest) to interfere with the activites of the School Idol Club.

* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: There's very little to distinguish the two outside of their voices as the two have separate voice actresses, and from the way their bangs are parted.
* CanonImmigrant: They originally appeared in the anime, and later debut in ''ALL STARS'' in Chapter 20.
* DayInTheLimelight: Despite being incredibly minor side characters, they get fleshed out a bit in Shioriko's Bond Story, where they help Shioriko and the protagonist create a short film for the Nijigasaki Film Festival.
* HeroWorshipper: Both of them are big fans of Shioriko, and are quick to look for ways to improve her as a school idol. They also hold Setsuna in high regard, and lay praise on her thick, despite her loss to Lanzhu in Chapter 24 of ''ALL STARS''. That said, they still see Shioriko as inferior to Setsuna and ultimately aim to have the latter surpass the former.
* {{Meganekko}}: They both wear glasses.
* NamedByTheAdaptation: {{Inverted}}. They were originally nameless in the anime and are only referred to in the credits as the "Student Council Secretaries", but are given the names "Satsuki" and "Uzuki" in ''ALL STARS''.
* PunchClockVillain: Satsuki and Uzuki are actually school idol fans themselves, but since they're required to do their duty as the Monitoring Committee, they have to chase off the Club members when they put on a performance. However, to help out the Club, Shioriko instructed them to wait until the Club has actually finished a performance before chasing them away.
* SingleMindedTwins: They're twins who are hardly ever seen apart and essentially have the same personality.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: They are essentially the Nijigasaki version of the traditional "friend trio" that the other groups have, except they come as a pair and are tied to Shioriko rather than the protagonist.
* ThemeTwinNaming: Their names are both [[TemporalThemeNaming traditional Japanese names for months]]; "Satsuki" is the traditional name for May and "Uzuki" is the traditional name for April.

* LethalChef: She enjoys cooking, but nobody has ever told her how her food tastes. She has been told, though, that her food arrangement is [[CordonBleughChef "a bit too original"]]... Between her creations, there's a strange purple cake, a a strange purple soup, and a poor attempt at chinese cooking. Reactions to their taste range from dubious concern (in the anime) to ''outright food poisoning'' (when Lanzhu tasted her "chinese" food).

* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: [[spoiler:Her solo song, "I'm Still...", is not only done in the style of Western pop music, but also has the distinction of being the very first ''Love Live!'' song sung ''primarily'' in English with little bits of Japanese thrown in, and with a proper American accent to boot!]]

A pair of twins who are members of the Student Council and are assigned to the monitoring committee.

* CanonForeigner: They originally appeared in the anime, and later debut in ''ALL STARS'' in Chapter 20.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[https://twitter.com/LoveLive_staff/status/1342835557542494209 An announcement]] for Season 4 of Nijiyon features her symbol, a bookmark, teasing her introduction into that series.

* ExtremeDoormat: She has mellowed out a lot after her CharacterDevelopment. Her original headstrong personality is gone and she become a more passive individual who tend to get dragged by people around her, especially Lanzhu.

* DubNameChange: The English version of ''ALL STARS'' translated Hanpen's name as "Fishpuff". Notably, the cat is the only character in the franchise to have a different official English name from its original Japanese one.

!''ALL STARS - Season 1'' Others/Supporting Characters
[[folder:Nana Nakagawa]]
[[quoteright:235:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_nana_7.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/TomoriKusunoki

The StudentCouncilPresident of Nijigasaki High School, whose no-nonsense and hard-working personality belies her deepest passions and encourages her to live a double life.

For tropes relating to her, see "Setsuna Yuki".

[[folder:Shioriko Mifune '''(Major Spoilers for ''ALL STARS - Season 1'')''']]

[[folder:Kaoruko '''(Spoilers for Chapter 17)''']]

!Kaoruko Mifune

[[quoteright:209:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sifas_kaoruko.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/YokoHikasa

Shioriko's older sister, Kaoruko is a former school idol and the previous head of the School Idol Festival Committee. With the bulk of the Committee's members graduating, Kaoruko finds herself unable to host the next School Idol Festival, but allows her position to be passed to the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club and gives them her blessing. Her relationship with Shioriko forms the crux of the latter's actions throughout Season 1.

* BrokenPedestal: It's revealed that Kaoruko was a shoo-in for the next head of the Mifune family, but she gave up the role in favor of following her dream of being a school idol. Shioriko, who believed that success makes people happy, interpreted this action as her sister throwing away her chance at success for a fleeting dream, and came to resent both her and school idols in turn.
* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Season 2 reveals that Kaoruko has moved on to being a teacher and has returned to Nijigasaki to take up a temporary student teaching position for training.]]
* CuteLittleFangs: Like her younger sister, Shioriko.
* FamilyThemeNaming: Like her sister, her name is a normal Japanese name with the word "ko" tacked on at the end.
* FanGirl: Of school idols. It's the main reason why she founded the School Idol Festival.
* MulticoloredHair: A mix of black and red hair. The red parts are most likely dyed since her sister doesn't have them.
* SiblingYinYang:
** A RedOniBlueOni type. Kaoruko is warm and supportive while Shioriko, before her CharacterDevelopment, is cold and pragmatic.
** Chapter 27 reveals [[spoiler:that it's also a FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling type with Kaoruko being the foolish sister and Shioriko being the responsible and dutiful sister. When Kaoruko got into school idols, she neglected her studies at times and always slept late, requiring Shioriko to wake her up.]]
* StrongFamilyResemblance: It's easy to see that she and Shioriko are related even before the reveal.
* UnseenNoMore: Up until the final chapter of Season 1, Kaoruko is only mentioned by name or appearing in silhouette without actually being present. It's not until she shows up to the School Idol Festival that she appears in full and her connection with Shioriko is revealed.

[[folder:Haruka Konoe]]
[[quoteright:188:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_haruka_7.png]]
[[caption-width-right:188:[[labelnote:Click here to see her appearance in [=NijiYon=] #77]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_haruka_konoe.png]][[/labelnote]]
-->'''Grade:''' First Year
-->'''Birthday:''' November 11 (Scorpio)
-->'''[[PersonalityBloodTypes Blood Type]]:''' A
-->'''Height:''' 154cm
-->'''Hobby:''' Helping my big sister
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KaedeHondo
\\\
Kanata's younger sister and a school idol from Shinonome Academy. Unlike her perpetually-sleepy older sister, Haruka is very hard-working and upbeat, ready for anything at a moment's notice, especially when it comes to school idol activities. Due to attending different schools, Haruka is rarely ever seen by Kanata's friends, but by sheer serendipity Haruka occasionally has a chance to meet the school idols her sister always hangs out with.

* AllWorkVsAllPlay: In ''SIF'', she's the Work to her sister Haruka's Play. Averted in the anime due to Kanata's drastic AdaptationPersonalityChange.
* AngerBornOfWorry: She snaps at Kanata for the latter insisting that she'll still continue working even harder for Haruka's sake when Haruka made it clear that her own decision to [[spoiler: quit being a school idol]] was so Kanata wouldn't be so overwhelmed with her responsibilities anymore.
* AscendedExtra: While she didn't place high enough in the poll to become a member of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, she still gets featured in Nijigasaki material (the {{Yonkoma}}, game, and anime) anyway by virtue of having a familial relation to Kanata, who ''did'' become a Nijigasaki member.
* FamilyThemeNaming: "Haruka kanata" means "faraway."
* GirlishPigtails: She always has pigtails as shown in her unidolized and idolized cards, and for all her appearances in Nijigasaki-related content. It visually marks her as the younger Konoe sister.
* IconicOutfit: Her September 2017 idolized N card outfit, which she is seen wearing in almost all of her appearances in ''Nijigasaki'' material.
* SiblingYinYang: Haruka is energetic and hard-working, while her sister Kanata is a LazyBum who always seems sleepy.
* SignificantBirthDate: She is briefly seen with ProductPlacement for Pocky, a famous Japanese brand of thin, frosting-dipped biscuit sticks, in the anime. Her birthday, November 11th, is also known as "Pocky Day" in Japan.
* UnseenNoMore: She gets mentioned by Kanata a few times in ''ALL STARS'' and the Nijigasaki-related Side Stories in ''SIF'' but she never actually appears, making her TheGhost. She was revealed in the "Nijiyon" {{Webcomic}} {{Yonkoma}} using her original ''SIF'' design but because the work is LooseCanon, it means her appearance there is questionable. She finally appears properly in Chapter 14 of Kanata's bond story in ''ALL STARS'', and went to appear in episode 7 of the anime.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mai Natsukawa]]
[[quoteright:264:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sifas_mai.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/SatomiSato

A 3rd year school idol and the heir to the Natsukawa Photo Studio. She plans to retire as a school idol in order to pursue the family business. She appears in Emma's bond story.

* CommonalityConnection: Besides being fellow school idols, it turns out that the song she performs and the song that inspired Emma to be a school idol is the same.
* IdiotHair: Has one on top of her hair.
* ItWasAGift: Her song was inherited from her sempai, whose performance inspired Emma to be a school idol. [[spoiler: She later passes the song, "Aion no Uta", to Emma during her retirement live.]]

[[folder:Misato Kawamoto]]
[[quoteright:199:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pdp_profile_misato.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/YuiIshikawa
\\\
A kind woman who serves as Ai's older sister figure. Although the two are not related by blood, their bond is deep enough for Ai to treat her like a relative. Despite her physical weakness, she supports Ai in all of her endeavors and plays a key role in her uprising as a school idol.

* ChildhoodFriends: With Ai.
* CoolBigSis: Ai looks up to her and calls her "Onee-san".
* CurtainsMatchTheWindow: Has brown hair and brown eyes.
* IllGirl: It's revealed later on that her fairly weak constitution caused her to be hospitalized often when she was younger. Ai would visit her in the hospital to cheer her up, which eventually caused Ai to develop her PungeonMaster habit when she realized that Misato found it funny.
* MotherlySidePlait: It highlights her gentle and caring personality.
* WhatTheHellHero: After Ai praises the Club for overcoming their obstacle of Lanzhu's oppresion of their Club, Misato bluntly asks Ai why she defected from the Club. This leads to Ai revealing her inferiority complex toward Setsuna, Kanata, and Kasumi.

[[folder:Hanpen / Fishpuff]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hanpen_love_live_nijigasaki_high_school_idol_club_202971_7.jpg]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Anna Mugiho (Japanese)

A stray cat that Rina found roaming the grounds of Nijgasaki High.

* AdaptationDeviation: Hanpen is still a stray in both the game and the anime, but while Hanpen ends up getting unofficially adopted by Rina and kept in the School Idol Club's room (with Shioriko's permission), in the anime Hanpen is appointed as the school's "stroll commissioner" and essentially becomes the school pet.
* AmbiguousGender: Hanpen's gender is unknown; the cat isn't referred to with any gendered wording in Japanese, and the English subtitles use they/them pronouns.
* AscendedExtra: Just slightly, as the anime at least gives Hanpen scenes, while in the game Hanpen exclusively appears in Rina's Bond Story and never on-screen except for one specific image.
* CaligulasHorse: After discovering that neither Rina nor Ai could take take Hanpen home with them, Setsuna appoints the cat as the student council's official trekking officer, [[LoopholeAbuse exploiting a loophole]] so that it could remain at the school.
* DubNameChange: The English version of ''ALL STARS'' translated Hanpen's name as "Fishpuff". Notably, the cat is the only character in the franchise to have a different official English name from its original Japanese one.
* EdibleThemeNaming: Rina named the cat "Hanpen" after its favorite food.
* FastballSpecial: In Episode 2 of the anime, Kasumi throws Hanpen at Setsuna in order to distract the latter, so she could sneak into the student council's office to steal the nameplate for the School Idol Club.
* FreeRangePets: Was initially found roaming the grounds of Nijigasaki High, with Rina sneaking it food every so often.
* HappilyAdopted: Episode 13 of the anime suggests that the student council has essentially done this for Hanpen, as its vice president is seen caring for the cat in a brief scene during the ending performance of the School Idol Festival.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: As its name suggests, the cat is fond of hanpen, a form of Japanese fish cake.

!''ALL STARS - Season 2'' Others/Supporting Characters

[[folder:Lanzhu Zhong]]
[[quoteright:268:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_lanzhu.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Rose pink
-->'''Grade:''' Second Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Akina Homoto

A Chinese-Japanese student from Hong Kong and the chairwoman's daughter. She transferred to Nijigasaki High to see her childhood friend, Shioriko Mifune. After being introduced to school idols, she created her own group, the School Idol Association, as she has her own approach on what school idols should strive to be.\\\

She serves as the antagonist of ''ALL STARS Season 2''.

* TheAce: Lanzhu is an exceptionally talented and hard-working individual, far more than most people, and her school idol performances are repeatedly stated as being top-class. [[spoiler:Chapter 28 reveals that she's actually a BrokenAce.]]
* AlphaBitch: Lanzhu has several hallmarks of this trope: rich, popular as a school idol, charismatic, ''incredibly'' petty and stuck up, and more than willing to abuse her position as the chairwoman’s daughter to get what she wants.
* AnimeChineseGirl: While her standard design looks like it could mostly fit in with the rest of the cast, her costume for "Queendom" plays the Chinese card pretty heavy-handedly, with her hairstyle being done up in odango hair and her outfit being a stylized {{qipao}} combined with regal-style wear like a BadassCape and thigh-high boots. She also strikes a stereotypical crane stance at the end of the song.
* ArcVillain: Of ''ALL STARS Season 2'', being the direct cause of the conflict faced by the School Idol Club.
* AscendedFanboy: She was inspired to become a school idol after watching the performances put on by the School Idol Club for the School Idol Festival, and transferred into Nijigasaki High. She then actively attempts to invoke this trope by creating the School Idol Association and trying to convince the school idols who inspired her to join it. However, she is only partially successful, as only Karin, Ai, and Shioriko (and Shizuku for a brief stint) actually take her up on this offer.
* BeautyMark: Below her right eye.
* BrokenAce: [[spoiler:Her CharacterFocus reveals that being so good at everything alienated her from other people and prevented her from forming lasting friendships, causing her to develop an IJustWantToHaveFriends complex and [[MyWayOrTheHighway communication issues.]] Shioriko became her [[OnlyFriend only]] ChildhoodFriend because Shioriko felt bad for Lanzhu and didn't want her to be lonely.]]
* BrokenPedestal: In a sense, the School Idol Club is this to her, as she was inspired to become a school idol herself after watching their performances. However, her perfectionist streak led to her deeming the very club that inspired her to be amateurish and inferior, and she now seeks its dismantlement.
* ButNotTooForeign: Her profile states that she's actually half-Japanese.
* CantTakeCriticism: In line with her narcissistic personality, she is unable to accept that her approach to being a school idol might be wrong, despite Shioriko and Mia trying to tell her otherwise.
* CatchPhrase: "冇問題" (pronounced as "Mou man tai"), which is Cantonese for "No problem".
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Flashbacks during Lanzhu's CharacterFocus episode reveal that [[spoiler:she's always idolized the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club when she first saw them at the School Idol Festival and dreamed of becoming friends with them, so she set up the Association for them so they could all join together and become even better school idols]]. This is bizarrely inconsistent with her early Season 2 behavior where she actively sought to ''ruin'' the Club to force the girls to join the Association and was downright nasty to the protagonist [[spoiler:despite the entire crux of her character being [[IJustWantToHaveFriends wanting to make friends with others]]]].
* ChildhoodFriends: With Shioriko Mifune.
* CharacterShilling: The other characters never fail to consistently remind the audience how "perfect" Lanzhu's performance as a school idol is. This even extends to characters who are outright antagonistic towards her, such as Kasumi. Shioriko also sticks up for her and claims that she has no bad intentions, a view that is also later shared by the protagonist. This is despite the fact that the former has to constantly work to mitigate the impact of Lanzhu's behavior.
* CoatCape: Her school idol costume has one.
* CustomUniform: She wears a distinctive uniform unlike those worn by the other students, consisting of a gold-lined red cardigan marked with the Nijigasaki High insignia in place of the standard black blazer, and her winter uniform shirt is black instead of the standard white shirt.
* DefeatingTheUndefeatable: [[spoiler:She proves her ace status when she cleanly wins the tournament in Chapter 24 by defeating both Kasumi and Setsuna.]]
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Her approach to school idols is that they should have professionals backing them up in terms of songwriting, costume design, and choreography, and she views this to be the best way to express herself as a school idol. This perspective directly clashes with the notion previously espoused by the franchise that school idol performances are ''inherently amateur productions'', with said idols doing all of these tasks [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything on their own]] in-house, which is part of their appeal.
* EvilCounterpart: To Kotori, being the daughter of a high ranking official of her school (in Lanzhu's case, she's the daughter of Nijigasaki High's chairwoman), but unlike Kotori, flaunts and abuses her status for all its worth.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Her self-absorbed attitude tends to rub both her longtime friends, Shioriko and Mia, the wrong way, with both of them finding her difficult to deal with at times. However, both assist her in her school idol activities because they feel obligated to her on account of their friendship.
* {{Foil}}:
** Both Lanzhu and the protagonist are the leaders of their respective School Idol Clubs who have a great love of school idols and attract the people around them due to their love. However, the protagonist personally handles most of the hard work herself, writes all of the songs and dances, prefers to stay in the background to allow her friends to shine, and has a high level of charisma and leadership. Lanzhu, conversely, delegates all of the work to others, is enamored with the spotlight above all else (to the point of reducing the other members of her Association to backup dancers) and refuses to admit that anyone is better than her, and lacks any sense of charisma or tact, preferring to entice potential members with her top-of-the-line facilities and production values.
** As a school idol, she also serves as a contrast to Ayumu in many aspects. While Ayumu is kind and tender to most people and lacks self-esteem, Lanzhu is narcissistic, snobby to people she doesn't like, and has huge amounts of ego and confidence in her own abilities. Ayumu loves her childhood friend, the protagonist, and is obviously close to her, whereas Lanzhu openly dislikes the protagonist and isn't afraid to show it. Ayumu considers herself largely ordinary while Lanzhu considers herself very special. There's also how they first became school idols: while Ayumu also saw the same school idol performance that inspired the protagonist to love school idols and support them, she initially wasn't as interested in school idols and only became one because she wanted to impress her childhood friend and get her attention, though she eventually grew to genuinely love becoming one later on. Lanzhu immediately took an interest in school idols after watching the School Idol Festival and quickly became one herself.
* FoodAsBribe: She frequently holds expensive luncheons and readily invites the School Idol Club to them as a quick way to try and sway them to her side. However, given that it is implied that she might genuinely want their friendship, it could also be her way of invoking TastesLikeFriendship as well.
* GoodColorsEvilColors: Being the only character in the franchise who wears a black dress shirt as part of her uniform may be emblematic of this.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Being Chinese, she applies some uses of it, such as changing the name of the School Idol Club to "School Idol Club" but with the Japanese "doukokai" swapped out for a Chinese "bu". Her first solo also has the distinction of having English, Mandarin, ''and'' Cantonese phrases spliced in, making it the first song in the franchise to use three languages at once, as Mandarin and Cantonese are separate dialects of the Chinese language.
* HateSink: Subverted. She has an unlikeable personality by default (being a petty and stuck-up AlphaBitch who CantTakeCriticism) and she attempts to disband the School Idol Club by forcing the girls to join her Association, only for her to reduce them to backup dancers with little guarantee of performing individually, and when she fails to win over all 10 members of the club, she goes to ridiculous lengths to prevent them from practicing or putting on shows, and she abuses her status as the chairwoman’s daughter to get away with it all. Additionally, she’s ''very'' dismissive and intolerant towards the protagonist, telling her to her face that she’s boring and useless to the Association. However, the narrative ''really'' wants the audience to know how perfect she is, with the other characters ''constantly'' [[CharacterShilling praising her perfection even though we barely get a glimpse of her performances]], [[spoiler:she’s EasilyForgiven by the club after Shioriko reveals her backstory in Chapter 28]], and despite the awful way Lanzhu treats her and the club, the protagonist thinks she’s a good person with no bad intentions.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: One way she tries to interfere with the School Idol Club is to create a Monitoring Committee to stop their guerilla lives. The Club eventually responds by livestreaming said lives online, which means that any actions made by the Monitoring Committee against them will be seen by their online viewing audience. This ultimately winds up garnering the Club a reputation as an underdog and thus more support, while harming the perception of the Association among school idol fans. Lanzhu is finally forced to disband the Monitoring Committee in Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'' after this series of events causes more harm to the Association than good.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: [[spoiler:Heavily implied by a specific scene in Chapter 27, after Shioriko yells at Lanzhu for designing a routine that only she's capable of. [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Lanzhu starts behaving strangely immediately afterwards]], runs off, and doesn't appear for the rest of the Chapter.]]
* IJustWantToHaveFriends:
** Implied. Despite trying to disband the School Idol Club, she still attempts to win over its members to her side by offering them expensive gifts and meals, and is quick to refer to anyone who shows a slight bit of friendliness towards as her "best friend". This suggests that despite her demeanor, she secretly desires some form of companionship from others. However, her pushy personality and poor treatment of the protagonist wind up driving away the very people she is trying to attract. Because she CantTakeCriticism, she fails to see exactly why her approach is failing, despite Mia clearly spelling it out for her.
** More directly implied in Chapter 27, when Lanzhu shows the protagonist her own notebook about the Association members and she discovers a section detailing a huge laundry list of fun things she wants to do with the Club members after they join her Association. The protagonist wonders why Lanzhu can't already do those things with the Club, but Lanzhu insists on the girls joining the Association before cutting her explanation short.
* InvincibleVillain: Being both [[TheAce the best school idol in Nijigasaki]] and the most powerful student in the entire school makes Lanzhu extremely difficult to contend with for the otherwise-average School Idol Club girls. Not once does she take any meaningful losses besides disbanding the Monitoring Committee, and not only do the Association's shows utterly eclipse the Club's in sheer technical prowess and execution, but [[spoiler:she manages to outstrip even Setsuna's popularity among the student population, who is otherwise FamedInStory as having skills on par with professional idols]].
* {{Jerkass}}: Lanzhu essentially has all of Shioriko's worst traits pre-CharacterDevelopment but instead of being an ice-cold ObstructiveBureaucrat she's just an asshole. Shioriko maintains that Lanzhu doesn't really mean harm but doesn't have a better way to express herself to others.
* JerkassToOne: She's egocentric and selfish, but at the very least, she's genuinely friendly towards the school idols even though her actions caused the original club a lot of grief in the game's second season. However, she dislikes the protagonist and is intentionally rude and dismissive towards her especially in their interactions together. It's notable that the protagonist is the only member of the original school idol club that Lanzhu clearly doesn't want to invite over to the new one she formed. [[spoiler:A conversation between the protagonist and Mia in Chapter 28 has Mia suggesting that Lanzhu may have acted this way because she was jealous of how the protagonist was essentially the center of attention for the Club.]]
* KickTheDog: Aside from preventing the School Idol Club from reestablishing itself through any means possible and taking away the crowd Kasumi gathered for the guerilla live the Club put up, there's how she treats the protagonist when they actually meet face-to-face for the first time: telling her how uninteresting she is after learning firsthand how she was the original president of the School Idol Club and then having the gall to tell her how she has no use for someone like the protagonist in her School Idol Association thanks to Mia's presence making her unnecessary. Notably, after being told all that, the protagonist's self-esteem takes a bit of a hit until Shioriko reassures and comforts her afterwards.
* LackOfEmpathy: Like Shioriko, this is her main flaw. She believes that school idols should have the best environment and staff to become the best that they can be and dismisses any comment that it could be wrong.
** In Chapter 22, [[spoiler:she doesn't even realize that Mia is mentally stressed out. When she goes missing and everyone is worried about her, she just shrugs it off and thinks Mia is just making a song for her]].
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: She is introduced in Chapter 19, the last installment of the first season of ''ALL STARS'', alongside Mia.
* LethalChef: She claims to be good at basically anything, but the moment Kaoruko forces her to do her own cooking it becomes plainly obvious that she's never set foot in a kitchen a day in her life. Hilariously, ''Setsuna'' of all people is impressed by Lanzhu's miserable attempt at cooking, and it ultimately falls upon SupremeChef Kanata to save their dinner.
* LonelyAtTheTop: Despite being the most powerful student in Nijigasaki, almost no one in the Association likes her. Shioriko only joins her Association to rein her in (unsuccessfully), Mia makes her displeasure clear for being dragged to Japan just to be her personal songwriter, the Monitoring Committee are secretly on the original Club's side.
* MyWayOrTheHighway: Lanzhu initially attempts to prevent the School Idol Club from carrying out their activities, wanting her Association to be the only group of school idols in Nijigasaki High. She even forms a Monitoring Committee to try and block their activities. She is eventually forced to give up on this approach in Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'' after the School Idol Club starts performing individually in different locations and streaming their guerilla lives online. This makes them considerably harder to stop, and starts to harm the Association's reputation after the Monitoring Committee is seen trying to stop their events on the Club's livestreams by the online viewing audience.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: [[spoiler:In Chapter 27, Shioriko, Lanzhu and the protagonist are debating how Shioriko should execute her upcoming live performance, with Lanzhu enthusiastically pushing for a daring high-flying stunt while Shioriko insists on a regular dance routine. Lanzhu's persistence eventually pisses off Shioriko, causing her to snap at Lanzhu, and for the first time in the story Lanzhu is visibly distraught and runs off, being completely absent for the subsequent live show in spite of the effort she put into it.]]
* {{Narcissist}}: Her ImageSong, "Queendom", has her boasting about how special she is and how she is the best, along with emphasizing her MyWayOrTheHighway methodology.
* NewTransferStudent: She transfers into Nijigasaki from Hong Kong after being inspired to be a school idol from watching performances by its School Idol Club.
* ThePerfectionist: Lanzhu always tries to make herself perfect and urges others to do so as well.
* PetTheDog: She's noticeably a lot nicer to the protagonist after Chapter 25 for no clear reason. She allows the protagonist to watch her practice in the middle of the night in Chapter 26, and in Chapter 27 she reveals to the protagonist that seeing her keep notes on the Club members inspired her to copy her and create her own notebook analyzing both the Association's and the Club's performances.
* RapunzelHair: Also goes down to her lower back like Setsuna, Shizuku, and Kanata.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: Lanzhu comes from an incredibly affluent family and throws money around faster than even Mari can for the most ridiculous things. As a result, she's not really used to how regular people do things and tries to rope them into her way of thinking by spending extravagantly.
* RoyalBrat: Being the chairwoman's daughter means she can get away with her {{Jerkass}} behavior.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: She uses her position as the chairwoman's daughter to get her way, while disregarding rules that other students have to follow. To wit, she starts her own school idol club and attempts to dismantle the existing one, while creating a Monitoring Committee to try and prevent its members from practicing idol activities. Lanzhu's connections are such that despite Shioriko's position as StudentCouncilPresident, the latter is unable to do anything about the former's behavior.
* SkilledButNaive: Similarly to Shioriko prior to her CharacterDevelopment, Lanzhu is a newcomer to the field of school idols, but quickly demonstrates that she has indisputable skill. However, Lanzhu has a skewed perception of what being a school idol is about, and is quick to assume that it involves utilizing professional resources and backing personnel, which goes against the inherently amateur nature of the field. She also believes that it is easy to win over people to her side by bribing them with expensive amenities, and demonstrates genuine confusion when this instead winds up driving away those people.
* StartMyOwn: She comes to Nijigasaki High to be a school idol, after being inspired to do so by the performances put on by the school's idol club. However, rather than joining said club, she instead opts to create her own club and aims to forcefully disband the existing one.
* StealingTheCredit: Kasumi accuses Lanzhu of taking the credit for the School Idol Festival, which was the work of µ's, Aqours, and the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, after onlookers for Lanzhu's performance witness it and believe that she was responsible. The protagonist, however, takes a more nuanced view and believes that said onlookers were outsiders who were unaware of Lanzhu starting her own club at Nijigasaki, and hence conflated the activities of her School Idol Association with that of the Club. For her part, Lanzhu never actually claimed any sort of credit for the School Idol Festival.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: People correctly guessed that the chairwoman is her mother based on their similarities.
* {{Squee}}: Towards the members of the Club, except for TheProtagonist whom she dislikes. This is likely because, despite her attempts to disband the School Idol Club, its members were still the people who inspired her to become a school idol in the first place.
* TalentedButTrained: Lanzhu is naturally gifted, but to achieve her astronomical standards for perfection she works constantly to polish her skills and learn new crafts. She also attempts to impart this to others by advising them on how they can improve, similarly to Shioriko and the protagonist, but because of her inherent talent she often forgets the fact that many people are not as capable as her.
* TechnicianVersusPerformer: She creates this dynamic with the School Idol Club, being the technician to their performer. She believes that school idols can only thrive if they have the most profession backing, including but not limited to costume design, songwriting, and choreography, while also indulging in expensive ameneties and meals. She also takes a pragmatic approach to school idols, and believes that only the best one can stand on stage as a center, reducing all other members to backup dancers.
* TokenMinority: She's Chinese.
* TokenRichStudent: The school idols of Nijigasaki High aren't exactly poor but similar to Mari, Lanzhu is the only one whose wealth is focused on. Unlike Mari, however, Lanzhu is more willing to spend money even for the smallest of things.
* TookALevelInKindness: She [[CharacterizationMarchesOn inexplicably]] becomes nicer over the course of the story without any CharacterDevelopment whatsoever, giving the protagonist some PetTheDog moments, no longer being hostile to the Club and no longer trying to make the girls join the Association by force.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: According to Shioriko, Lanzhu is this. To wit, Shioriko explains to the protagonist that Lanzhu has no bad intentions, and did what she did because she believed her actions would make others happy. Namely, Lanzhu genuinely thinks that providing school idols with the best amenities and production staff is the best way to make them shine. However, she takes a heavy-handed approach in executing said beliefs, namely by trying to disband the School Idol Club and prohibit its activities to force its members to adopt her approach. That said, her poor ability at conveying her good intentions leads others to dislike her, while her self-absorbed behavior prevents her from realizing that she is repelling the people that she wants to help.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Non-fatal examples.
** She attempts to recruit the members of the School Idol Club to her Association, but is dismissive of the protagonist upon meeting them for the first time in-person, and states that their presence is unnecessary, given that she already has Mia to write her club's songs.
** In Chapter 23 of ''ALL STARS'', she instructs Shioriko to disband the Monitoring Committee after the School Idol Club starts streaming its guerilla lives online, and this approach makes them considerably harder to stop.

[[folder:Mia Taylor]]
[[quoteright:198:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_mia_taylor.png]]
-->'''Image Color:''' Beige-white
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/ShuuUchida

A bilingual transfer student from New York and one of Lanzhu's friends. She serves as the composer and lyricist for Lanzhu's School Idol Association, and enrolls as a third year despite her age. Contrasting Lanzhu's gung-ho attitude about joining up with Nijigasaki and starting the School Idol Association, Mia was unwillingly dragged from her home to placate Lanzhu, and initially comes off as comparatively foul-mouthed and asocial.\\\

She forms an unusual bond with Rina in Chapter 22.

* AffectionateNickname: Ai calls her "Mia-chi".
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: According to Lanzhu, she analyzes popular trends and uses them as inspiration for songwriting.
* BerserkButton: She loathes being compared to the protagonist as a songwriter, especially since she is FamedInStory and part of a prestigious musical family, while the latter is an amateur in comparison who only writes songs out of passion for her fellow clubmates. She is later convinced to reassess her view of the protagonist after Rina, whom she struck up a friendship with, tells her that their methods are NotSoDifferent.
* {{Bokukko}}: She uses the boyish "boku" when referring to herself in first-person in Japanese.
* {{Catchphrase}}: “Shit.”
* ChildProdigy: Her composition background is quite prolific, with multiple chart-topping hits under her belt that make her a decorated songwriter. She is also a GradeSkipper, enrolling in Nijigasaki as a third year student.
* CommonalityConnection: The basis of her bond with Rina. They both like hamburgers, video games, [[spoiler:quiet places and music.]]
* EvilCounterpart: To the protagonist, being the Association's lyricist and songwriter who isn't a school idol herself. Unlike the protagonist, who also serves as a leader and role model for the club, Mia is abrasive by nature and plays second fiddle to Lanzhu.
* FamedInStory: Even before transferring to Nijigasaki and independently of her familial affiliations, Mia was already a well-known songwriter, with Mari and Riko expressing familiarity with her work.
* GradeSkipper: Owing to her being a ChildProdigy, she enrolls in Nijigasaki as a third year student despite being ''fourteen years old''. Back in the United States, she was a ''college student''.
* ItRunsInTheFamily: Mia comes from a family of famous singers although Mia isn't one herself.
* LastEpisodeNewCharacter: She is introduced in Chapter 19, the last installment of the first season of ''ALL STARS'', alongside Lanzhu.
* LethalChef: While nowhere near as lethal as Lanzhu, Mia is somehow even ''more'' clueless about food. Not only does she have to be told what part of a cherry tomato is the stem, her "attempt" at making instant hot chocolate results in the protagonist informing her that the hot chocolate powder actually needs water or milk to turn into something potable. She is also impressed by Setsuna's cooking, forcing Rina to divert her attention to stop her from making a big mistake.
* NewTransferStudent: She transfers into Nijigasaki from a college in New York on Lanzhu's prompting.
* NonUniformUniform: She wears a navy and white letterman jacket in place of a blazer over her winter uniform.
* NotSoDifferent:
** To the protagonist. Both of them dedicate their songs to their club member and both of them are plagued with self doubt for their fear of letting down the people around them.
** Rina deliberately invokes this in Chapter 22, highlighting small things that she and Mia have in common as the basis of a CommonalityConnection.
* PeekABangs: Her fringe is long enough to cover her right eye.
* PerformanceAnxiety: [[spoiler:She used to love singing up until her first public performance wherein she froze up in front of the audience due to the heavy expectations weighing on her mind. She took up music composition instead to avoid dragging her family name through the mud.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In Chapter 22, Mia pointedly tells Lanzhu to fix her personality if she wants any hope of convincing the school idols who haven't defected to her club to join her. As Lanzhu CantTakeCriticism, she simply insists that there is nothing to fix.
* SirSwearsALot: She's rather foul-mouthed, especially compared to the rest of the cast.
* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: [[spoiler:Her solo song, "I'm Still...", is not only done in the style of Western pop music, but also has the distinction of being the very first ''Love Live!'' song sung ''primarily'' in English with little bits of Japanese thrown in, and with a proper American accent to boot!]]
* TeenGenius: She's only 14 yet she is already known worldwide for her compositions.
* TokenMinority: She's American.
* {{Tomboy}}: Particularly when compared to the other girls. She has BoyishShortHair, [[{{Bokukko}} uses the “boku” pronoun]], wears her uniform in a rather unkempt manner with a letterman jacket to boot, [[LadySwearsALot and speaks rather coarsely]].
* TookALevelInKindness: She starts out by being incredibly dismissive of the protagonist like Lanzhu and shows a lot of pride in her work as a professional songwriter, taking any comparison of her work to the protagonist's as an insult. Once she gets CharacterDevelopment and makes a BestFriend in Rina, she softens up substantially and begins to acknowledge the protagonist's potential. She even gives the protagonist an AffectionateNickname in "Baby-chan / little baby" in recognition of her efforts as a songwriter.

[[folder:Nijigasaki Chairwoman]]
[[quoteright:180:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/llas_nijigasaki_chairwoman.png]]
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/{{Yukana}}

The chairwoman of Nijigasaki High School.

* StrongFamilyResemblance: People correctly guessed that she's Lanzhu's mother based on their similarities.

[[folder:Satsuki and Uzuki]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2021_03_02_044639.png]]
-->'''Grade:''' Third Year
-->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/KanaIchinose and Rico Sasaki

A pair of twins who are members of the Student Council and are assigned to the monitoring committee.

* HateSink: Subverted. She has an unlikeable personality by default (being a petty and stuck-up AlphaBitch who CantTakeCriticism) and she attempts to disband the School Idol Club by forcing the girls to join her Association, only for her to reduce them to backup dancers with little guarantee of performing individually, and when she fails to win over all 10 members of the club, she goes to ridiculous lengths to prevent them from practicing or putting on shows, and she abuses her status as the chairwoman’s daughter to get away with it all. Additionally, she’s ''very'' dismissive and intolerant towards the protagonist, telling her to her face that she’s boring and useless to the Association. However, the narrative ''really'' wants the audience to know how perfect she is, with the other characters ''constantly'' [[CharacterShilling praising her perfection even though we barely get a glimpse of her performances]], she’s EasilyForgiven by the club after Shioriko reveals her backstory in Chapter 28, and despite the awful way Lanzhu treats her and the club, the protagonist thinks she’s a good person with no bad intentions.

* HateSink: Lanzhu has a really crappy personality by design, being a moody perfectionist and narcissist who loathes the protagonist's normalcy yet sucks up very hard to all of the other girls to get on their good side, in addition to abusing her status as the chairwoman’s daughter to get what she wants and attempt to shut down the Club, and when she manages to get some of the girls to join the Association, she reduces them to ''backup dancers''. Further rubbing salt in the wound is that she is [[CharacterShilling said to have unparalleled skill as a school idol]], and no one except Mia and Kasumi even dislikes her in spite of her obvious personality flaws; in fact, some of the girls are even inspired by her perfection.