Trivia / Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club

• Audience Participation:
  • Three of the Nijigasaki idols are SIF Original Generation characters, chosen out of a reader popularity poll.
  • Fans voted for a Canon Name to the protagonist of the anime via online submission in the Dengeki G's website.
  • The "Legend of Nijigaku" stories are basically fantasy Gamebooks using the Nijigasaki characters. The first was serialized in the Love Live! Days magazine, with each chapter ending with several choices that the readers could vote on, and which would be reflected in later chapters. "Legend of Nijigaku 2" was created for the 2023 fan meeting tour and played at each stop with the audience getting to choose the characters' actions, and later released as its own gamebook.
• B-Team Sequel: The animation and character designs for this series were handled by a different department than the one who worked on School Idol Project and Sunshine!!. Yuuhei Murota, Love Live!'s main character designer, didn't have any input on the anime by his own words aside from making the original designs for All-Stars. In terms of music, most of the project's songs were handled by different lyricists instead of the franchise's longtime lyricist/songwriter Aki Hata; thus far, the only songs she's written for NijiGaku are the All-Stars opening song "TOKIMEKI Runners" and the anime's ending themes.
• Content Leak: Shioriko, Mia, and Lanzhu's appearances in the anime were revealed in a leaked product listing for rubber strap keychains a few months prior to their official announcement.
• Defictionalization: The memorial items made to commemorate events in the anime.
  • Season 1 Episode 1's item is Ayumu's cardholder pouch◊ with a pink flower design, seen briefly at the beginning and near the end.
  • Episode 2's item is the School Idol Club nameplate◊ that Kasumi retrieved and customized. On the back is a screenshot of her and a quote she says just before her Insert Song.
  • Episode 5's item is a "Niji" bowl◊ that Emma eats rice from.
  • Episode 7's item is a cushion◊ modeled after Kanata's pillow.
  • Episode 11's item is a plush◊ shaped like the Kasumin Box that the club uses to get suggestions and messages of support for the School Idol Festival. It measures 6.3"/16 cm.
  • In July 2021, orders opened for a big Kasumin Box plush◊ measuring 24.4"/62 cm. In addition, there are character box plushes of the first nine members and Yu with the same size as the prior Kasumi one made for the anime.
  • Indirect example: In season 1 episode 9, Setsuna bought a book in the "Guren no Kenki: Flame Sword Princess" series at the Gamers store. On April Fools' Day 2022, an announcement featured Setsuna in a "movie adaptation" of that series, and the real Gamers store and website sold merchandise with the announcement visual.
  • Ten umbrellas from the Season 1 ending were made available for sale in June 2022. There are color variations for the first nine members and Yu, and each has a sketch print on it of a character from that ending.
  • Season 2 Episode 1's item includes a clear file◊ with the School Idol Club book cover design at the Open Campus event booth. It comes with a tote bag, ring notebook, and ballpoint pen with the Nijigasaki school branding.
  • Episode 2's item is a set of acrylic keychains◊, which Lanzhu buys, of the first nine members in their Season-1 insert song outfits.
  • Episode 3's item is Kasumi's photo album◊. One of the eight included bromide pictures◊ is Kasumi's embarrassing childhood photo.
  • Episode 4's item consists of◊ a panda-shaped charm and a DiverDiva Special Live poster.
  • Episode 5's item is a "Love Live!" baseball cap◊ that Lanzhu wears in the episode.
  • Episode 6's item is a mini diorama◊ of the A•ZU•NA Land stage. It includes acrylic standees of the trio and four background cards.
  • Episode 7's item is (spoilers) a keychain◊ with miniaturized charms of Shioriko's hat from her insert song and her sister Kaoruko's bowtie ribbon from the flashbacks.
  • Episode 10's item is a smartphone case◊ with 13 cat designs for each of the club members. While it represents Rina's In-Universe smartphone app, ten of these cats are from April Fools' Day 2021. This indirectly puts part of the "Nyangasaki" joke onto a real product.
  • Episode 11's item is a tapestry print◊ of the club's poster from the after-credits scene. It comes with a clear file◊; the front and back of it has the designs of two other notices in the episode.
  • Episode 12's item is a set of fridge magnets◊ cut out like the cookies of the 12 performing members, plus the rainbow and three "Niji" circles.
  • Episode 13's item is (spoilers) a leaflet◊ commemorating the anime's version of the "First Live with You!" concert. While not seen in the episode, it contains 13 cards, one of each club member (contents seen here).
  • Four more keychains◊ of the remaining members (including Yu) were later made. They go along with the ones from Season 2 Episode 2.
  • Items for the Nijigasaki 5th Live! include Kasumi's moon hairclip◊, a zipper bag◊ shaped like Shizuku's dog Ophelia, the Kanata doll◊ from S2 Episode 2, a plush◊ of Rina's robot cat Aran, Shioriko's handheld fan◊ from the S2 opening, and Lanzhu's heart-shaped sunglasses◊ from S2 Episode 5.
  • Among the items put up for preorder in Dec. 2022-Jan. 2023 was a cat-eared hooded jacket◊ similar to what Mia wears in S2 Episode 9's "stars we chase" video.
• Fake American: Somewhat. Mia's voice actress Shuu Uchida is genuinely a native English speaker and thus ensures that Mia does speak in properly accented American English... which is made slightly hilarious considering that Uchida was born and raised in Australia. This makes her a unique example from a non-dubbed Japanese work that is closer to the usual Hollywood take of this trope (an American character played by an actor/actress from another Anglophone country).
• Fandom Nod: In a story arc later in season 1, Ayumu's Clingy Jealous Girl tendencies push her into acting very possessive of Yuu before she comes to her senses, backs off, and the others have to help her accept that both she and her beloved childhood friend have changed, but that that doesn't mean she's being abandoned. This seems to be a nod to memes and doujin turning Ayumu (and Kotori and You before her) into full-on yandere, although throwing those fans a bone for a moment while still ultimately staying in the tone of the franchise for the fans who prefer the canon focus on healthy, happy love and friendship instead.
• Invisible Advertising: For unknown reasons, neither Funimation nor Crunchyroll promoted this series. In Crunchyroll's case, they only place the ads for episodes releasing online (and tweeted a season-2 announcement days before it premiered), but in the case of Funimation, not only are they not promoting new episodes, but they are not releasing tweets related to the series.
• Left It In: A Freeze-Frame Bonus in the TV broadcast of Episode 11 after Ayumu reads Yu's message before she heads to her room, her eyes became dull for two frames before reverting back to normal eyes upon a blink. This erroneous scene was left untouched of all the changes in the BD release.
• Meaningful Release Date: "Butterfly", Kanata's Insert Song from the anime, has a release date of December 16, 2020, which is Kanata's birthday.
• Meme Acknowledgment:
  • Two days after the airing of Episode 10, in which Ayumu saw what appeared to be Setsuna and Yu embracing after the former tripped and was caught by the latter, a video promoting the anime was uploaded to the franchise's YouTube channel, featuring Hinaki Yano and Tomori Kusunoki, the voice actresses for Yu and Setsuna, respectively. The timing of the upload, coupled with the fact that the voice actresses of the characters responsible for the episode's drama were in the video, led to jokes and memes in the video's comments section that all of the video's dislikes came from Ayumu, who is known to be a Clingy Jealous Girl where Yu's attentions are concerned. Some commenters also further joked that Aguri Onishi, Ayumu's voice actress, was the one who had been disliking the video, implying that vitriol existed within the cast. The memes were enough to prompt a tweet from Kusunoki, in which she stated that the timing when the video was uploaded was simply a coincidence, and that there is no actual negativity between cast members.
  • The official Twitter account of KFC Spain uploaded a photo of a drive-through window into which an image of Karin from the anime was photoshopped, which spawned fan art and memes featuring Karin working at the fast food chain. Miyu Kubota, Karin's voice actress, took notice of the tweet and issued a response asking what the connection was between her character and KFC.
  • Aguri Onishi loves playing up the yandere angle for laughs whenever she and Hinaki are on stream, such as exhibiting Clingy Jealous Girl tendencies and "threatening" Kaori Maeda after Hinaki reveals that she pulled a Shizuku card from the gacha in ALL STARS, leaning into the yandere Ayumu memes for the content.
• Method Acting: Chiemi Tanaka revealed that she literally wore a cardboard box on her head while recording the scene where Rina hides under a cardboard box in Episode 6.
• No Export for You:
  • Following the licensing trainwreck Bandai Visual had with Love Live! Sunshine!! and following the Ensemble Stars! way, the anime series is unavailable outside United States, Canada, the UK & Ireland, German-speaking countries, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Even Funimation had to apologize to users in the United Kingdom and Ireland for not broadcasting the anime series.
  • On October 8th, 2020, the Nordic and Russian branches of Wakanim announced that the anime will be released at a later date, due to the lack of human resources to translate all anime series Funimation got in most parts of the world.
  • On October 14th, 2020, the series was finally announced for the UK and Ireland, due to the rights acquired by Anime Limited, the current distributor of the latest Love Live! series for those countries.
  • Despite the fact that the memorial items from the anime can be purchased by overseas fans through licensed channels, a tweet from the franchise's official Twitter account has stated that Episode 6's AC adapter◊ is unavailable to overseas purchasers, due to differences between Japan's voltage, frequency, and plug types compared to those in other countries. This does not get into the fact that memorial items are limited-run pieces of merchandise, and most people who purchase them will likely refrain from actually using them for their intended purposes. Such fans would likely consider them Too Awesome to Use and thus not use them out of fear of damaging them or reducing their value. Even putting that aside, electric power and plug converters are readily available in most parts of the world, and A-on Store stated it's rated for 100-240V at 50/60Hz, so an international fan who does want to use the memorial item should not have an issue doing so.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content:
  • A scene in Season 1 Episode 13 has Karin doing a quick photoshoot in front of a message board covered in pictures. The pictures on the board are real fan art sent in by viewers, with all of the artists being properly credited in the episode's credits sequence.
  • The Cold Open for Season 2 Episode 13 shows Miyako Hito's Nijiyon-style artwork on a bouquet for the club, followed by a giant wall covered in many more fan art pictures. The artists for the fan art are listed in the episode's credits once again.
  • The credits roll for NEXT SKY includes a segment showing off fan mail from a large number of Japanese, Chinese and English-speaking fans of the series.
• Out of Holiday Episode: QU4RTZ's Christmas carol-themed BD single "Twinkle Town" released in May 2021.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Mayu Sagara, the voice actress of Kasumi Nakasu, is a fan. She regularly plays SIF based on her tweets, has stated that she really likes Kotori in the AbemaTV special stream and attended Aqours 5th Love Live.
  • Moeka Koizumi, who voices Shioriko Mifune, is a fan of the original Love Live! series.
  • Chiemi Tanaka, who voices Rina, is a fan of Aqours.
  • Akina Homoto, who voices Lanzhu, is a huge fan of the series. She draws illustrations for each character's birthday, has stated her favorite characters are Kotori and Ruby (but she likes all of them), and her favorite songs are "Dancing stars on me!" and "Mitaiken HORIZON" for µ's and Aqours respectively.
  • For the English dub of the anime, Megan Shipman, who voiced Hanamaru in Sunshine!!, dives into the director's seat the same way Caitlin Glass, who voiced Maki in School Idol Project, eventually directed the Sunshine!! dub.
  • After doing a cover version of Mijuku Dreamer in 2017, Kayli Mills has finally voiced a Love Live character.
• The Other Darrin: Tomori Kusunoki stepped down from voicing Setsuna due to being diagnosed with Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, which restricted her ability to move and dance during live concerts. Coco Hayashi took over the role of Setsuna effective April 1, 2023, with Love Live! School idol festival 2 MIRACLE LIVE! and the Nijigasaki OVA being her first voice credits as Setsuna.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In March 2023, Tomoyuki Kawamura, director of many Nijigasaki episodes, revealed that the original draft for the anime - which served as inspiration for the "Mirai Harmony" PV - had Ayumu be the only person that knew Setsuna's real identity as Nakagawa Nana.
  • Also, he revealed that the Season 1 Episode 11 climax was originally going to use a background track called "Sonata for Two Violins", but this was rejected and replaced with the current BGM because the old one felt too much like "horror scene" music.
  • The first key visual for the Trilogy movies was going to retain the same character design from the 2nd Season and the NEXT SKY OVA before switching to more stylized designs akin to Bocchi the Rock! anime due to involvement of Kerorira who was also the designer of the said anime.
  • A later tweet by Kawamura revealed that Season 2 scenes where the girls decide their subunit names were cut because the staff felt that they didn't meaningfully contribute to the story since existing fans already knew the subunit names to begin with and the significance of such scenes would be lost on new viewers.