Follow TV Tropes

Following

Trivia / Love Live!

Go To

General franchise trivia

  • Acting for Two: Nico and her siblings share the same voice actress in the original version, Sora Tokui.
  • Anime First:
    • Zigzagged. Most Love Live! series don't start out as anime but are generally first released in the form of magazine profiles (published in Dengeki G's) and music videos, which provide templates for the anime release. The keyword is "templates", however; the anime is not explicitly based on pre-anime material in terms of story, which pre-anime material lacks, and the anime have liberal creative freedom with the characters and relationships, so every series may as well be anime first.
    • Played straight with Superstar!!, as it was made clear that the series was designed with a planned anime in mind, so both the characters' initial profiles and the Hajimari wa Kimi no Sora MV are consistent with their portrayals in the anime, unlike School idol project and Sunshine!!.
    • Defied with the School idol project and Sunshine!! manga, which released before their respective anime but do not adapt the anime at all, instead being original stories just like the anime but with Alternate Continuity.
    • Averted with Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, which is The Anime of the Game but with heavy Adaptation Deviation.
  • Amateur Cast: The franchise has a tendency to cast newcomer and amateur voice actresses, especially for later series, knowing the heavy time commitment the franchise requires.
    • The main cast of Love Live! Sunshine!! is made up of newcomers who, at the time the project started, had no notable prior roles and little professional acting/singing experience. For most of the voice actresses, the anime proved to be their Star-Making Role.
    • The girls of Love Live! Superstar!! are all voiced by industry newcomers; Liyuu (who voices Keke Tang) is better known as a singer and cosplayer and Naomi Peyton (who voices Sumire) is a former Idol Singer, while the rest are complete unknowns.
  • Ashcan Copy / Contractual Obligation Project: It's not clear which but Love Live! School idol festival 2: Miracle Live! announcing its global release and simultaneously announcing the total shutdown of service three months after launch in a single Twitter/X post has to fit at least one of these.
  • Cash-Cow Franchise: The franchise had a very humble start in 2010 (its first single, "Bokura no LIVE, Kimi to no LIFE", sold only 434 copies) but has since expanded into various other media such as anime series, books, manga, mobile games, music albums, and even concerts. It wasn't until Love Live! School idol festival was released in Japan that the series really took off; the first Blu-Ray volume of the second season of School Idol Project sold over 90,000 copies in its first week, the highest of any anime at the time. The franchise continues to remain one of Oricon's highest grossing multimedia franchises in the country to this day, with spikes in sales generally coinciding with the release of a new anime.
  • Dueling Shows: For the franchise as a whole, with The Idolmaster.
    • Which is part of what made the Ijigen Fes crossover concert in 2023 such a huge deal. The actual event was organized in blocks of themed "battles", and the performances highlighted some of the franchises' different ways of doing things, but in the end both sides got to show off their best and do lots of collaborations.
  • Fan Community Nicknames: Love Livers, often shortened to Livers (no, it has nothing to do with the organ and it's "Lie-verse" not "liv-errs").
  • Fandom Life Cycle: The franchise is quite well known in Japan, sitting at minimum a solid Stage 4. It's generally associated with the revitalization of the idol genre in anime, and during the peak of its popularity in the µ's era was almost big enough to be considered mainstream; even after the departure of µ's, Aqours, Nijigasaki and Liella maintain strong, dedicated and active fanbases. Outside of Japan, like most Japanese franchises, the franchise experiences considerably more limited exposure, roughly Stage 3 in scope. The fanbase is comparatively small but tight-knit, and it has enough exposure that many anime viewers are usually dimly aware of the series.
  • Follow the Leader: While Bushiroad has a stake in the franchise via the video games, they seem to have taken to attempting to capitalize on the market with their own multimedia franchises with similar "high school girls doing music things" appeal, just with different gimmicks; BanG Dream! is girls being in bands, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight is theater girls, and D4DJ is girls being DJs.
  • Humble Beginnings: The series started in 2010 as a massive financial failure, with their first single "Bokura no LIVE, Kimi to no LIFE" selling only 434 copies on release. It would eventually become a hugely successful franchise.
  • Irony as She Is Cast: Famously among the fans, the franchise has a tendency to cast a significantly shorter actress as a taller character within a given group, or vice versa.
    • For µ's: Yoshino Nanjo (150) as Eli Ayase (162).
    • For Aqours: Aina Suzuki (147) as Mari Ohara (163) and Kanako Takatsuki (164.5) as Hanamaru Kunikida (152).
    • For Nijigasaki: Akina Houmoto (153) as Lanzhu Zhong (165).
    • For Liella: Aya Emori (164.5) as Natsumi Onitsuka (152).
    • For Hasunosora: Kanna Kan (165) as Rurino Osawa (151).
  • Japanese Honorifics: With all the characters being in high school, where the sempai-kouhai dynamic really starts to become significant, it's interesting that each series in the franchise ends up taking a different approach to this relationship:
    • µ's devotes an entire episode to getting rid of this distinction within the group, wanting everyone to be treated equally.
    • Aqours never deals with it at all, due to the setting being a smaller community where people tend to be less formal and most of them already having closer ties than just being schoolmates.
    • Nijigasaki, as with most things, takes an individualized approach. Notably, Kasumi is the only one to address older girls as "sempai" consistently (which plays up her own youth and cuteness), while Shizuku addresses just the player this way in ALL STARS.
    • Liella! is the first to keep the sempai-kouhai distinction as well as having it applied naturally. As the characters advance grades each season, there is a real gap in experience between each grade, both in-universe and to the audience, and that informs the characters' perspectives and relationships even though they are all just as close with each other as the previous groups. The fact that the actresses also join successively alongside their characters makes the dynamic real for them as well.
    • Hasunosora puts some emphasis on it due to their sub-units being structured around sempai-kouhai pairs, but each pair plays it differently. Mira-Cra Park!'s Childhood Friends relationship is more prominent, while Cerise Bouquet runs with it hard, almost approaching Yuri Genre trappings of the admiring underclassman and her beloved sempai.
  • Official Fan-Submitted Content:
    • The reason why the franchise is considered community driven is the ability of fans to submit and vote on different content of the franchise such as the group name, sub-unit names and its members, song centers, etc.
    • Many doujin artists also submitted their stories for the Anthology manga collection.
  • The Other Darrin: Tomori Kusunoki retired from the role of Nana Nakagawa/Setsuna Yuki in March 2023 due to a diagnosis of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndromenote . The role was filled by Wake Up, Girls! alumni Coco Hayashi.
  • Overtook the Manga: Inverted; the School idol project and Sunshine!! manga are still officially "ongoing" despite their respective anime concluding years ago, with the latter infamously stuck at essentially the beginning of the story.
  • Referenced by...: SiIvaGunner uses "Snow Halation" as one of its most common running gags. It became so overdone that people started dislike bombing every rip that referenced it (even if only for half a second), something that eventually played an important role in the Reboot ARG.

Trivia for the first Love Live anime

  • All-Star Cast:
  • Ascended Fanon:
    • Because of the word "kotori" meaning "little bird", fans often associated Kotori with birds. It doesn't help at all that she was subjected to Memetic Mutation after the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon where fans quickly noticed the similarities between her and the new bird starter, Rowlet. After some time, the "bird motif" would find its way into the phone games.
    • Though the "Ascended" part is subverted, various Japanese fan artists' submitted chapters are published by Dengeki for the anthology manga.
      • On the other hand, Tokita Arumi's submission is pretty much viewed as debatable due to fact that the artist previously worked as the manga adaptation's author.
      • While the chapter is already adapted for the School Idol Diary manga adaptation, Bcoca's "In the Middle of the Dream" for the "µ's Precious Days" compilation book is also considered as an alternate loose adaptation of the said chapter.
  • Baby Name Trend Starter: This series is half of the reason that the name Rin made the list of the top ten baby names for two years in a row thanks to the character of Rin Hoshizora being one of the show's most popular characters.
  • Casting Gag: This isn't the last time Erica Lindbeck is going to voice a character who's blond. If being a violinst, genderbent Mordred, or a Special Forces agent dedicated to defending Earthrealm is any indication.
  • Celebrity Voice Actor: In the English dub, Honoka is voiced by Marieve Herington (who also had a role in How I Met Your Mother).
  • Dueling Shows: The first season of this anime duelled with the second season of AKB0048; they both premiered in January 2013.
  • Dyeing for Your Art: For the 4th Live, Aya Uchida bleached her hair to make it look more similar to Kotori's shade of ash-blonde, especially obvious in the video footage of the concert, where the color of her hair is even lighter than in these photos. This was said to have caused her much pain and damage. Nevertheless, she repeated it for the 5th Live and Final Live; where Pile also dyed her hair auburn and Aina Kusuda dyed her hair purple, making them further resemble Maki and Nozomi respectively.
  • God Never Said That: Due to μ's disbanding in-universe, their real-life counterparts no longer performing lives, and being displaced by Aqours as the face of the franchise, uninformed fans sometimes claim that μ's has actually disbanded. Not only has this claim actually been disproved by Word of God, but μ's still does voiceover work for new Love Live!-related content and returned for School idol festival ALL STARS and Love Live Fest in 2019-2020.
  • Hey, It's That Sound!:
    • In season 1 of the anime, when the girls go to a karaoke bar, the instrumental version of "Love Novels", a song from BiBi, plays in the background.
    • Also, the background music that's used in the fashion show event in season 2 is "Puwa Puwa-O!", one of Printemps' songs.
    • The background music that plays when μ's hangs out during episode 11 of season 2 is an instrumental version of "Yuujou No Change" from their first single.
  • Milestone Celebration: The release of the single "A song for You! You? You!!" celebrates μ's ninth anniversary (and the franchise's ninth anniversary as a whole).
  • No Dub for You: Originally, the first season was released sub only in September of 2014. On April 24th, 2015, it was announced that both seasons would get dubbed re-releases. It was then released on Valentines Day, 2016.
  • Official Fan-Submitted Content: The group's name (μ's) and the subunits' names (Printemps, lily white, BiBi) were chosen from submissions of Dengeki G's readers. Song centers are sometimes chosen this way as well.
  • Out of Holiday Episode: Season 2's Halloween episode first aired in Japan in May 2014.
  • Overtook the Manga: The manga (including the adaptations of School Idol Diary) is still ongoing despite the Anime's ending.
  • Playing Against Type: Though warranted by the actresses trying to match their voices to their Japanese counterparts, there are a few instances in the English dub:
  • Promoted Fanboy: Several of the English dub members are avid Love Live fans including Caitlin Glass, Erica Mendez, Kira Buckland, Xanthe Huynh, and Laura Post.
  • Referenced by...:
    • In the first episode of Osomatsu-san, Jyushimatsu dons a Honoka costume and says her call and response phrase, "Faito dayo!", which angers Choromatsu.
    • In the seventh episode of King of Prism: Shiny Seven Stars, Shin wears a cosplay of the "Bokura Wa Ima No Naka De" outfit that is a mix between Honoka's version of the outfit (the dress part) and Umi's version (the hair accessory).
  • Star-Making Role: The role of Honoka is this for Marieve Herington, at least as an anime voice actress. It's also this for Faye Mata (Rin). This too also covers some of the Japanese voice actresses as some of them are newcomers to the industry.
  • Tourist Bump: Some locations featured in the show like Kanda Shrine (where Nozomi works as a part-time Miko) and Takemura (the basis for Honoka's house) have become popular tourist sites.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Eli, Hanayo, Rin and Umi were supposed to have additional siblings before it was officially written off.
    • Several Muse songs have not yet been performed live (such as Paradise Live and Ruteki Kisuki Shiteru).
    • Also, soldier game has not been performed live with Eli, Maki and Umi's voice actresses at the same time on stage.
    • Furthermore, while Nico/Maki and Nozomi/Eli have their duet songs, Rin/Hanayo do not.

Top