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May Our Dream Come True!

Love Live! (ラブライブ!) School idol project series (or simply Love Live!) is a Japanese multimedia project co-developed by ASCII Media Works' Dengeki G's magazine, music label Lantis and anime studio Sunrise that started in 2010. The original concept is credited to Hajime Yatate (the collective pseudonym for Sunrise's animation staff) and Sakurako Kimino (best known as the creator of Strawberry Panic! and Sister Princess).

The franchise revolves around the concept of "school idols" note , ordinary schoolgirls in Japan who become amateur Idol Singers and bond together to make their hopes and dreams come true through heart, friendship, and music. Each series follows a different group of school idols at various fictional high schools across the country, with each group starring a unique and colorful cast of girls. Originally starting out through animated music videos and fictional biographies in Dengeki G's magazine, the series initially failed to garner popularity, but has since blossomed into a massive multimedia franchise with short stories, music videos, music CDs, actual live performances by the voice actresses behind the main characters, anime, manga, light novels, and video games.

Due to its heavy focus on the multimedia aspect, the franchise carries some multiple unique traits distinguishing it from standard idol anime. Most notably, many portions of the franchise involve heavy Audience Participation through reader voting games held in Dengeki G's magazine, such as the names of schools and groups, subunit members, centers for upcoming singles, and more. The voice actresses for the characters are also a visible and prominent part of the franchise, being marketed as somewhat real life versions of their respective characters. They function the same way other idol groups do, by participating in traditional idol activities such as informational livestreams, meet and greet events and performing at concerts. The groups have become immensely popular both in Japan and overseas, performing for sold out crowds all across the world. Despite being primarily aimed at an adult male audience, the franchise is also known for appealing to multiple demographics unlike similar anime in the genre, including children. The series aired on syndication in Japan, and there are children's books featuring the characters. Several voice actresses from later incarnations of the series have been fans of the earlier incarnations in the series. Some have been fans since their childhood, no doubt due to the family-friendly nature of the series reaching audiences far beyond the adult male target demographic.

The first series, Love Live! School idol project, follows the adventures of "µ's" (pronounced "muse"), a fledgling school idol group in Tokyo, as they try to save their school from closing due to lack of students. In 2016, µ's performed their Final Live and is now on "indefinite hiatus."note  In 2020, the group briefly became active performers again for the franchise's 9th anniversary, with a new animated music video being released and the voice actresses taking the stage yet again at Love Live! Fest in January of that year.

A second series called Love Live! Sunshine!! (ラブライブ! サンシャイン!!) started in 2015. It focuses on "Aqours" (pronounced "aqua"), a new school idol group from the remote seaside town of Uchiura, as they try to find their own radiance. In 2023, the cast reprised their roles in an alternate universe animated television series of a Spin-Off manga, Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-, with Sunshine's Breakout Character Yohane (otherwise known as Yoshiko Tsushima in the original) front and center as the main character.

In 2017, Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club (ラブライブ！虹ヶ咲学園スクールアイドル同好会)note  was introduced, which follows another school idol club in Odaiba. Unlike their predecessors, the club focuses more on solo acts with the members acting as both friends and rivals to each other. Nijigasaki is notable for starting as an adjacent project to the game Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS until it branched off on its own, getting an anime and varied multimedia content.

In 2020, a fourth series was announced called Love Live! Superstar!! (ラブライブ！スーパースター!!). Set in the areas of Omotesando, Harajuku and Aoyama, it features "Liella!", a school idol group composed of first year students, as they attend a newly reopened school. This spin-off is notable for having an open audition to voice its lead heroine, Kanon Shibuya, and for being the first to advance grades, with the initial members becoming second-year and then third-year students as new seasons air.

In 2022, a fifth unit, the Hasunosora Girl's High School Idol Club, based in Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture, was introduced. Unlike previous units, this branch is predominantly focused on digital formats via blending the Love Live! concept with stylistic and presentation elements based on the Virtual Youtuber trend, under the title "Virtual School Idols". The group primarily revolves around the smartphone app Link! Like! Love Live!, a communication app with video game elements released on April 15, 2023 (via Early Access) that allows players to follow the unit's activities in real time and watch streams, virtual concerts, and animated story episodes featuring the unit.

The works in this franchise so far are:

    open/close all folders 

    Music Videos 

    Anime 

  • Love Live! School Idol Project (January 2013 - June 2014): Composed of 26 episodes divided into two seasons. With Otonokizaka High (an aging school located between Tokyo's neighborhoods of Akihabara, Kanda, and Jinbouchou) on the brink of closure, 2nd year student Honoka Kousaka is inspired to create a school idol group to save the school she loves.
  • Love Live! School Idol Project OVA (November 2013): A non-canon Bizarro Episode bundled with µ's 6th single, Music S.T.A.R.T!!
  • Love Live! The School Idol Movie (June 2015): The Finale Movie for School idol project!. µ's is invited to New York to perform, but the impending graduation of Eli, Nozomi, and Nico has put the future of µ's in jeopardy, and the group must decide if it is worth continuing without them.
  • Love Live! Sunshine!! (July 2016 - December 2017): Composed of 26 episodes divided into two seasons. Chika Takami, a 2nd year student at Uranohoshi High in rural Uchiura, is inspired by µ's to form her own school idol group, but through hardship and perseverance must learn to find her own radiance.
  • Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow (January 2019): The Finale Movie for Sunshine!!. After Mari, Kanan, and Dia mysteriously disappear during their graduation trip to Italy, the remaining Aqours members are recruited to find them but must also come to terms with the future of Aqours.
  • Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR- (June 2023 - Present): An anime inspired by the illustration series of the same name from Dengeki G's Magazine, originally announced on April Fools' Day. Set in an Alternate Universe counterpart of Numazu, the series follows the adventures of Yohane, a young fortuneteller, as she seeks to fulfill her dreams of stardom alongside her companion Lailaps.
  • Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club (October 2020 - June 2022): The anime adaptation of the video game Love Live! School idol festival ALL STARS, composed of two 13-episode seasons. Yu Takasaki and Ayumu Uehara become enamored with school idols after witnessing a magical performance by legendary idol Setsuna Yuki. However, with Nijigasaki's School Idol Club being seemingly disbanded, Yu must step forward to make her dream of supporting a school idol group a reality.
    • Nijiyon Animation (January 2023 - Present): An anime adaptation of the Nijigasaki webcomic, Nijiyon, composed of two seasons. Unlike the original comics, which were based on ALL STARS, Yu Takasaki will appear.
    • Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club NEXT SKY (June 2023): An Original Video Animation sequel to the anime series, set to premiere in Japanese theaters on June 23, 2023. After spending two weeks studying abroad in London, Ayumu returns to Nijigasaki with a new face in tow: Aira, a foreign student who longs to become a school idol. Taking Aira under their wing, Shioriko and the Nijigasaki school idols work together with Aira to bring her dreams into fruition.
    • Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club: Conclusion, Chapter 1: (September 2024): The first installment of the Nijigasaki movie trilogy.
  • Love Live! Superstar!! (July 2021 - October 2022): Composed of 2 Seasons with 12 episodes each, with an upcoming third season. A past failure convinces Kanon Shibuya, a 1st year attending the newly-reopened Yuigaoka Girls' High School, that a future in music for her is over, but a chance encounter with energetic New Transfer Student Keke Tang leads to Kanon becoming a school idol in hopes of overcoming her fears and rekindling her passion for music.

    Video Games 

  • Love Live! School idol festival (April 2013 - March 2023): A Rhythm Game developed by KLab and released on Android and iOS in Japan in 2013 and overseas with an English localization in 2014. The game focuses on assembling a team of 9 members of varying stats to create an optimal high-scoring team.
  • Love Live! School Idol Paradise (August 2014): A series of Rhythm Games developed by Dingo and released on the PlayStation Vita in Japan. Starring µ's, School idol paradise was the series' first 3D rhythm game and primarily features songs from the anime and animated singles. The game was produced in three versions representing each subunit, with each version featuring unique songs, and the game also debuted the original song "Shangri-la Shower".
  • Love Live! School idol festival ~after school ACTIVITY~ (December 2016 - October 2021): An arcade adaptation of Love Live! School idol festival developed by Square Enix. The game takes the gameplay of School idol festival and adapts it to a full arcade unit while also introducing 3D performances where players can watch the girls perform the songs during gameplay. Players can also collect physical cards by playing the game and scan them into the arcade machine to customize the performances and gameplay. The game received its final update on November 10th, 2020, and was deactivated on October 1st, 2021 alongside other Square Enix arcade games.
    • Love Live! School idol festival ~after school ACTIVITY~ Next Stage (December 2018): The update which adds Aqours to the game, released in December 2018. Saint Snow would later be added in September 2019.
    • Love Live! School idol festival ~after school ACTIVITY~ Wai Wai! Home Meeting!! (March 2021): A console port of Next Stage releasing on the Playstation 4. This is the first iteration of SIFAC to release outside Japan, with an English localization launching alongside the Japanese version. This game uses a "free to start" system not unlike Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone where players can download the base game with a small amount of songs for free and buy the remainder of the game's tracklist through Downloadable Content.
  • Puchiguru! Love Live! (April 2018 - May 2019): Developed by Pokelabo and released on Android and iOS in Japan in 2018, Puchiguru! is a puzzle game starring the adorable nesoberi plushies in digital form, tapping and matching them for the highest score possible.
  • Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS (September 2019 - June 2023): A mobile rhythm RPG game released in Japan on September 26, 2019 and released globally on February 25, 2020. Set primarily in Nijigasaki High, a modern high school located in Odaiba, Tokyo, the game follows a (nameable) Player Character, who instantly falls in love with school idols after witnessing a joint live between µ's and Aqours. Reestablishing Nijigasaki's once-doomed School Idol Club, the protagonist rallies the school idols of Nijigasaki to join together with µ's and Aqours in order to create the greatest celebration of school idols in the world: the School Idol Festival.
  • Link! Like! Love Live! (May 2023* - Present): A mobile game and communication app focused on the franchise's fifth major unit, the Hasunosora Girls High School Idol Club. Kaho Hinoshita, a 1st year attending Hasunosora Girls' High School in Ishikawa, Kanazawa, discovers that high school life away from urban amenities isn't what it's cracked up to be. However, her life soon finds itself upended when she discovers the Hasunosora Girls' High School Idol Club, leading her to becoming a school idol to find her own journey to bloom.
  • Yohane the Parhelion -BLAZE in the DEEPBLUE- (November 2023): A Metroidvania based on Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-, also originally announced on April Fools' Day.
  • Yohane The Parhelion Numazu In The Mirage (2024): A Roguelike Deckbuilding Game also based on the aforementioned series.
  • Untitled Nijigasaki Visual Novel: An upcoming visual novel developed by Bushiroad Games and set to be released for the Nintendo Switch.

    Printed Media (Manga, Light Novel, Comic Anthology) 
Manga

  • Maru's 4-Koma (May 2017): A Hanamaru-centric Yonkoma that started in Dengeki G's and was later turned into a full manga.
  • Genjitsu no Yohane -Unpolarized Reflexion- (February 2022): The manga adaptation of the Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR- illustration series starring Yohane, set in a Fantasy Alternate Universe version of Numazu.
  • Love Live! School idol festival ALL STARS Event Memory (2023): A manga adaptation of Event Story scenes from the video game Love Live! School idol festival ALL STARS.
  • Love Live! flowers (November 2023 – present): A manga adaptation of Link! Like! Love Live!, serialized in Ultra Jump.

Light Novel

  • Love Live! School Idol Diary (May 2013): A series of light novels that expands on the characters featured in the anime. Later adapted to an ongoing manga.
  • Love Live! Sunshine!! School idol diary (September 2016): A collection of short stories packaged with the anime Blu-Rays that expands on the characters featured in the manga. Later adapted to an ongoing manga.
  • Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Real Face Photo Essay Series (November 2020): A series of short stories that expands on the cast of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club as they appear in the anime, with a similar style to the School idol diary series.
  • Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club: Guren no Kenki ~Flame Sword Princess~ (August 2023): A spin-off light novel made in collaboration with Dengeki Bunko and written by Yuusaku Igarashi, originally announced on April Fools' Day 2023. The Nijigasaki High School Idol Club decides to make a short film based on Setsuna's favorite light novel, "Guren no Kenki ~Flame Sword Princess~". The novel follows the activities of the Club as they shoot the film while also following the story of "Guren no Kenki ~Flame Sword Princess~".

Anthology

  • Love Live! Anthology: A manga anthology drawn by a variety of illustrators, different for each chapter.
  • Love Live! Sunshine!! Comic Anthology: A series of anthologies, official compilations of manga by various artists.

Others

  • Dengeki's G's magazine: Short stories are still being published in the magazine.
  • Love Live! Days: The Love Live! General Magazine. An offshoot from Dengeki G's as the series continues to expand.
  • Love Live! Booklet Stories: A series of short stories from the Love Live! School Idol Project Blu-Ray Discs.
  • Official fan books and guide books.

    Web Original 
  • Nijigasaki/PDP Yonkomanote  (July 2017 - December 2018): A group of unrelated Webcomics focusing on the original divisions of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club.
    • The Dengeki webcomic focuses on Karin Asaka, Kasumi Nakasu and Setsuna Yuki. The structure for this series is closer to the ongoing series, NijiYon.
    • The Famitsu webcomic focuses on the Famitsu App Group, consisting of Ayumu Uehara, Ai Miyashita and Rina Tennoji. The most popular of the three due to invokedAlternative Character Interpretation and Early-Installment Weirdness.
    • The Bushiroad webcomic focuses on the School Idol Festival Group, consisting of Shizuku Osaka, Kanata Konoe and Emma Verde. It has a similar feel with the Transfer Student Festival series.
  • Nijiyon (December 2018 - January 2022): A Yonkoma Webcomic series centered around the lives of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. After two seasons, the series changed to a Motion Comic format for its third season and released weekly on the official YouTube channel. A fourth season, which adds Shioriko Mifune (and later on, Mia Taylor and Lanzhu Zhong), ran from July 2021 to January 2022.
  • Kyou no Aqours (Today's Aqours) (October 2021 - December 2022): A short Web Animation featuring the daily life of Aqours.

Other Media

  • School Idol Musical (December 2022 - January 2024): The first theatre production for the franchise. The story is set in Kansai and features two girls from two schools - Takizakura Girls' Academy in Osaka and Tsubakisakuhana Girls' High School in Hyogo - who met through school idol activities. The production did well enough to get additional runs in August 2023 and January 2024.
  • Radio dramas included in the singles and albums.
  • Radio shows by the voice actresses of the characters.
  • Live streams by the voice actresses of the characters.
  • Promotional campaign events hosted by the voice actresses of the characters.
  • Concert tours featuring the voice actresses of the characters.

Tropes related to the franchise as a whole:

    # - F 
  • 12-Episode Anime: The anime commonly deals in 13-episode seasons (with the exception of Superstar!!, which has 12), with two seasons given to each group.
  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: This is present in most music videos and any scenes in the anime where the characters are performing; while the anime and PVs are primarily animated in 2D, performances will typically have a lot of shots rendered in 3D since that makes dancing easier to animate. The integration of CG has improved over the years, especially by the time the Sunshine!! anime aired.
  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Typically averted. While the student councils in the series hold great authority and are usually the first and most immediate threat to the protagonists, they usually co-exist alongside a higher power who have the ability to override their decisions. Most obviously are the school directors, including Director Minami, Mari and Yuigaoka's Director, but there's also Lanzhu who is the daughter of the director and exploits Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! to her full advantage.
  • Adults Are Useless: At best, the adults are there for emotional support, but pretty much everything important in the series gets done by the teenaged cast. There's also instances such as Mari's parents who work against the main girls, be it intentionally or otherwise.
    • Changed in Love Live! Superstar!! where the school principal is actually useful and balances some excesses of the cast.
  • Aerith and Bob: Of the predominantly Japanese main cast, the most blatantly foreign names are Emma Verde, Mia Taylor, and Margarete Wien, whose names are wholly Western in nature, and Keke Tang, whose name is explicitly spelled in its Chinese format despite having a Japanese equivalent. Dia and Ruby Kurosawa also have English given names despite being fully Japanese, which was apparently their father's decision.
  • Alternate Continuity: The canon of Love Live! is splintered into several different variations; while the different continuities do reference each other heavily and they more or less share the same characterizations, specific events within each continuity differ heavily.
    • The first and original continuity is commonly referred to as "Dengeki" canon, which refers to the short stories and biographies provided in the Dengeki G's magazine and mostly consists of characterization and little actual story. Almost all aspects of each character in the anime, games, and manga stem from their depictions in the magazines, although minor details are subject to change to fit the story or for comedic effect. This continuity has been largely rendered defunct due to the anime, with current Dengeki-adjacent publications using the anime's continuity.
    • By far the most popular continuity is referred to as "anime" canon, which encompasses the events of School idol project, Sunshine!!, their respective movies (but excluding the "Music S.T.A.R.T.!!" OVA), and the Love Live! School idol diary novels/manga. Voice dramas are also commonly considered part of anime canon, and while MVs have no concrete basis in any canon, they are heavily associated with the anime.
    • There is also ALL STARS canon, which consists solely of the School idol festival ALL STARS video game and is the debut media for the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. Unlike the other video games, ALL STARS is treated as a "major" canon by official media and borrows heavily from the anime series. This continuity is now defunct due to the shutdown of ALL STARS.
    • Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is an anime that stars the titular group. It's an entirely separate canon from Nijigasaki's source material that heavily rewrites the characters and the plot, but there is no clear connection to the other anime series. This medium has become the main continuity for the Nijigasaki cast due to the cancellation of their source material.
    • There is also "manga" canon, which encompasses the School idol project and Sunshine!! manga adaptations as well as the Love Live! Sunshine!! School idol diary novels/manga. The manga are produced separately from other forms of media and thus differ in both continuity and characterizations compared to the anime and games. One of the lesser known continuities due to most of the manga not being released or translated outside of Asia, as well as the anime continuity typically taking precedence.
    • Beyond those, there are also miscellaneous minor canon, which includes School idol festival (basically an Excuse Plot), the various yonkoma, and the Anthology manga (which exist outside of traditional canon).
  • Ambiguous Time Period:
    • Specific dates are never given anywhere, with the only indication of an actual time frame being the use of current technology, which can date the series anywhere during the 2010s.
    • Averted with Link! Like! Love Live!, which does give timeframes for its plot and starts in March 2023.
  • Animated Music Video: The franchise started out as a series of these, which were accompanied by short stories in Dengeki G's magazine that fleshed out the characters. Though the franchise has since expanded into other mediums, music videos are still made alongside the releases of singles.
  • April Fools' Day: The franchise loves to celebrate April Fools' Day. Notable entries include:
    • "Love Live! Sunshine!! Live-action Film! Special Movie"note 
    • "Uranohoshi Girls’ High School Store: Online Shopping Program Special PV" with a poorly edited 10-meter high "Hyper Fabulous Ultimate Jumbo Nesoberi EX"note 
    • A special scout in SIF depicting the child versions of µ's and Aqours
    • Uranohoshi Girls’ High School Entrance Examnote 
    • "Love Live! Sunshine!! New Program Special Information Video"note 
    • SIF released a crossover banner on April 1st, 2020 featuring cards of µ's and Aqours in the style of The Powerpuff Girls in addition to Bubbles, Buttercup, and Blossom as Support Cards (based on an actual Powerpuff Girls collaboration from 2015).
    • In 2021, promotional material for "Nyangasaki" was posted to the series' official YouTube and Twitter accounts, featuring the first ten performing Nijigasaki girls as cats. The Aqours CLUB official page was also "updated" to the space-themed "Aqours Club 2XXX", and the Sunshine!! official portal featured a "Cotton Candy Ei Ei Oh!"-style minigame called "Final Battle: Aqours VS Alien". School Idol Festival also released a surprise Crossover banner with Crayon Shin-chan, featuring cards of µ's and Aqours in the manga's signature style.
    • In 2022, the YouTube videos posted were "Ren-chan", a six-minute Liella! short, and an anime teaser based on Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR- (the latter, from the Love Live! Days magazine, got confirmed months later). There was also promo material featuring Setsuna who's starring in "Guren no Kenki" (with the Alternate Character Reading of "Flame Sword Princess").
    • For 2023, the main events were a trailer for a Yohane the Parhelion video game adaptation (later revealed to be Yohane the Parhelion -BLAZE in the DEEPBLUE-) and a promotional art parodying the cover art of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. The Aqours CLUB fansite was also replaced by "Aqours CRAB 2023". The real-life THE Chara CAFÈ STAND also added limited time items, including a "super-sized" Nijigasaki menu and a "Oninatsu Takoyaki Smoothie".
  • Arc Number: 9. Every unit has had 9 members at one point (either starting with 9, or eventually increased to 9), and the franchise had a special celebration for its 9th anniversary.
  • Arc Symbol: A feather.
    • µ's is represented by a white feather.
    • Aqours is represented by a blue feather, and a magenta feather appears for Saint Snow towards the end of Over the Rainbow.
    • Kanon's resolve to become a school idol in Superstar!! is signified by the appearance of a single white feather.
    • Feathers also appear prominently in ALL STARS in various ways.
  • Arc Words: Though School Idol Project lacks one per se;
    • "Radiance/Kagayaki". Heavily used on Sunshine!!, with the meaning of "radiance" being tied closely to Chika's I Just Want to Be Special backstory and the ability to persevere no matter the odds.
    • "Tokimeki"note . Used heavily through Nijigasaki High School Idol Club reflecting Yu's love for idols, the emotions that fill the club through their adventures, part of their first single, "Tokimeki Runners", and ultimately, what drives the club to come together.
    • "Musubu" for Superstar!!, meaning "to tie together, bond, connect", as well as the related "te wo tsunagu/holding hands". It provides the "lier (from French)" in Liella!, the "Yui" in Yuigaoka, and is present in many of their song lyrics and choreographies, such as the star formed at the end of "Mirai no Oto ga Kikoeru". The different kinds of bonds between the characters is one of the major focuses in the story.
  • Art Evolution:
    • The original designs for the µ's girls were significantly different, having less exaggerated and detailed eye designs and more "samey" faces between each of the characters, which made it easier to tell them apart through their hairstyles and hair colors than their faces. The overall art style changed over time, with their character designs in "Wonderful Rush" essentially solidifying how they would look from that point on.
    • The CGI animation in Sunshine!! is greatly improved and aesthetically meshes well with the traditional 2D animation. It eventually improved to the point where CGI was able to supplant traditional animation for most of the dancing scenes, which is especially evident in Over the Rainbow and the MVs for "A song for You! You? You!!", "Muteki-kyuu*Believer", and "Dazzling White Town".
    • There is a somewhat noticeable visual improvement (mostly shaders and more natural animation) between the "TOKIMEKI Runners" MV and later 3D music videos.
    • The CGI used in the "KU-RU-KU-RU Cruller!" MV is shockingly similar to 2D animation in both appearance and smoothness, compared to the previous 3DMV "smile smile ship Start!" which still had a distinctly CGI appearance. According to the animation director (who worked on both Sunshine!! and Nijigasaki), this was accomplished by printing out the CGI and drawing over it, essentially producing a CGI version of Rotoscoping.
  • Art-Shifted Sequel:
    • While Nijigasaki itself maintains the art style used by μ's and Aqours, its respective anime looks significantly different, best exemplified by the PVs for "Mirai Harmony" and "Muteki-kyu Believer".
    • Superstar!! also has an altered art style that resembles a halfway point between the Nijigasaki anime and the traditional Love Live! art style.
  • Artifact Title: The original group of nine (characters and their respective voice actresses) was initially introduced by the name "Love Live" and the first single, "Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE", was also released under that name. Following an invitation in the November 2010 issue of Dengeki G's magazine for readers to submit suggestions for the name of the group, and a poll in the December 2010 issue, they became known as "µ's". After that point, "Love Live" appeared to have no particular significance aside from being the name of the franchise. However, the anime then re-introduced it as the name of the school idol competition which serves as an overarching plot device for most of the franchise (except Nijigasaki).
  • Ascended Extra:
    • Kanata Konoe, Emma Verde and Shizuku Osaka were Normal rarity characters in School Idol Festival until they were voted into the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club by readers.
    • While Saint Snow had a pretty muted presence in Season 1 like their predecessor A-RISE, they eventually got Character Development in Season 2 and ended up becoming an additional unit to Aqours, with the opportunity to perform live in concert and have singles and MVs just like µ's and Aqours.
  • Ascended Meme: The infamous Umi poker face scene has been referenced several times over the course of the franchise's history, almost always in the context of two or more characters playing Old Maid.
  • Beach Episode: A Recurring Element of the franchise (which is a given for Sunshine, being set in a seaside town), though for Nijigasaki it's more of a Pool Episode. Also the music video for "Natsuiro Egao de 1, 2, Jump!", which has an overall beach/summer theme.
  • Bilingual Bonus: In addition to Lanzhu and Keke speaking Chinese in their respective anime, a couple of special livestreams with Akina Homoto and Liyuu were produced where the two converse entirely in Mandarin.
  • The Bus Came Back: μ's, with the announcement of their 9th Anniversary single in 2019 which marks a break in their hiatus since 2016.
    • Part of the μ's cast return again in 2024, for talks and performances commemorating the original anime's 10th anniversary, including the franchise's first orchestral concert.
  • Breaking Old Trends:
    • Nijigasaki has several notable changes, including having 10 members (but 9 idols), having a focus on solo songs, and having 2-3-4 subunit composition. Nijigasaki High is so filthy rich that they avoid the usual Saving the Orphanage plot too. They're additionally the first group to debut in a game. It's also the first group to add a Sixth Ranger and later added two more to create a fourth subunit.
    • Superstar!! has the main characters being all 1st years instead of being divided into different year groups. In addition, the group initially only has five cast members instead of the usual nine. They are also the first group to release two versions of the same single where the third track and voice dramas are different between versions. By Season 2, the cast was aged up (the first series to do so) and added 4 more members (all of them a year younger than the initial five) to make up the traditional nine member group.
    • The Hasunosora Girls' High School Idol Club is the first unit to focus primarily on subunits rather than full units or soloists. It is also the first unit to include Cover Versions as part of its discography, with units covering popular Vocaloid songs a la utaite.
  • Breakout Character:
    • The entirety of the Nijigasaki School Idol Club. Unlike the other groups, the Nijigasaki cast was not originally intended to have an anime, as they had been created specifically for ALL STARS and were originally just going to be part of the game. However, they became much more popular than anyone expected, which resulted in, among other things, getting their own anime. For some time the anime existed in tandem with ALL STARS as unique continuities from one another, but once the unit had proved that they could stand on their own two feet the game was slowly depreciated out of priority while the anime's version of characters and events was brought in to replace it, ultimately culminating in the shutdown of ALL STARS.
    • Yoshiko Tsushima of Aqours became this when Yohane the Parhelion, a Spin-Off series with her as the main character, was announced as a multimedia project under the Love Live series.
  • But Not Too Foreign: Eli is a quarter Russian, Mari is half Italian-American, Kanon is a quarter Spanish, Keke and Lanzhu are half Chinese. Averted with Nijigasaki's Token Minorities: Emma Verde, who is a Italian speaking Swiss with not a drop of Japanese blood in her (but, impressively, has perfect fluency unlike Keke), and Mia Taylor, who is 100% American.
  • Butt-Monkey: Each group has a designated comic relief character: Nico Yazawa, Yoshiko Tsushima, Kasumi Nakasu, and Sumire Heanna respectively. Expect them to be the target of most jokes and almost never be taken seriously except during a Character Focus or a particularly dramatic moment.
  • Canon Discontinuity: As the Anthology manga are basically officially-sanctioned doujinshi, they are one of the few pieces of official material to not be considered canon to any of the series' multiple continuities.
  • Canon Immigrant: While most Nijigasaki material is content to pretend that any material from School idol festival doesn't exist, Kanata's sister Haruka does make infrequent appearances throughout the franchise, including in the Yonkoma, ALL STARS, and Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. The anime also features multiple references to SIF, including the appearance of Shinonome Academy, Touou Academy, and multiple Original Generation characters making cameos.
  • Cast Herd:
    • Characters are commonly grouped up by year placement and are referred to as such by fans: "1st years", "2nd years", and "3rd years", each with three characters. Another common grouping is by subunit; while the anime tends to not refer to subunits, they are often used as the subject of various subunit-specific audio dramas. That said, characters interacting with each other outside of their herd is quite natural, although to what extent depends on the characters involved.
    • Rival groups A-RISE, Saint Snow and Sunny Passion blur the line a bit more, since they require any member of the main cast to be onscreen to get any character development. They are still recognized as distinct groups, however.
  • Character Catchphrase: Very common with many characters having an identifying catchphrase if they don't have a Verbal Tic like Rin and Hanamaru. Nico's "Nico nico nii!" is the most famous of these.
  • Childhood Friends: A common dynamic in the franchise.
    • From School Idol Project: Hanayo and Rin. Honoka, Umi and Kotori. The manga version adds Eli to the Honoka-Umi-Kotori group.
    • From Sunshine: Chika, You and Kanan. Kanan herself has Mari and Dia. Hanamaru and Yoshiko were friends in kindergarten. The manga instead has Ruby as Hanamaru's friend, and neither of them know Yoshiko.
    • From ALL STARS: Ayumu and her childhood friend (the player character/Yu Takasaki). Shioriko and Lanzhu.
    • From Superstar!!: Kanon and Chisato.
    • From Link! Like! Love Live!!: Rurino and Megumi.
    • From Yohane the Parhelion: Yohane and Hanamaru, which was carried over from Sunshine.
  • Character Focus:
    • Used extensively in the anime to flesh out each of the nine cast members in each group, save for the main character. Getting a character arc is a special privilege saved for characters who have much greater plot relevance; Kotori in the original series and Riko and the 3rd years, but especially Mari in Sunshine!!. That being said, some characters do get skipped over, like Umi, You, and Hanamaru.
    • SIF and ALL STARS use the standard Relationship Values model where you can see character-specific stories when a Card or the character gets enough of said Relationship Values.
  • Chromosome Casting: Pretty much every character of note in the franchise is female, and male characters are extremely rare. The only male character with any notable screentime is Cotaro, Nico's younger brother; any other male character that appears is The Voiceless, and is either a background character or has his face obscured by the camera. There are no male cast members whatsoever as well.
    • Finally averted with Yohane the Parhelion, which takes place in a fantasy universe and outside of a school setting. That said, the male characters aren't particularly important, but at least they have faces and voices.
  • Color-Coded Characters:
    • Each group gives each of its members an "image color" that their character is associated with to help identify them easily. Colors are commonly shared across groups; for example, the color orange is associated with Honoka Kosaka from µ's, Chika Takami from Aqours, Ai Miyashita from Nijigasaki and Kanon Shibuya from Liella!.
      • As more members are added, the franchise has made an effort to distinguish common colors; the latter three of the above are specifically Mikan, Super Orange, and Marigold. However, this does get stretched for heavily-used colors, especially pink; the last two of which are OniNattsu Pink for Natsumi Onitsuka and Ruri Pink for Rurino Osawa.
    • For the 9th anniversary, each school idol group is given their own group image color: µ's is pink, Aqours is light blue, Saint Snow is red, and Nijigasaki High is yellow. ALL STARS reuses these colors while adding purple for Liella!.
    • Yu, who is not a school idol, is identified by her unique black image color.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
    • Each of the main schools' uniforms include ribbons that are color-coded to indicate which grade the student is in.
      • Otonokizaka: Light blue ribbons for first years, crimson ribbons for second years, and green ribbons for third years.
      • Uranohoshi: Yellow ribbons for first years, red ribbons for second years, green ties for third years.
      • Nijigasaki: The winter uniforms follow the same general color coding as Uranohoshi does, but third years also get ribbons. For their summer uniforms, the first years switch from yellow to light yellow ribbons, third years go from dark green to light green ribbons and the second years switch from red to pink ribbons.
      • Hasunosora: Differs from everyone else as the ribbon colors are rotated based on class year, rather than current grade. Green ribbons for the 102nd class (Kozue, Tsuzuri, Megumi), red ribbons for the 103rd class (Kaho, Sayaka, Rurino), and yellow ribbons for the 101st class (Sachi) and again for the 104th class (Ginko, Kosuzu, Hime).
    • µ's is pink, Aqours is ocean blue, Nijigasaki is yellow, Liella! is purple, and Hasunosora is light pink.
    • From Aqours onwards, each group's sub-units also have their own colors, though they rarely get any play beyond extra colors in some event-specific light sticks. The audience is more likely than not to just use a mix of the members' colors.
      • CYaRon! is orange, AZALEA is pink, and Guilty Kiss is purple.
      • DiverDiva is silver, A•ZU•NA is Italian red, QU4RTZ is milk tea, and R3BIRTH is tanzanite blue.
      • CatChu! is solid red, KALEIDOSCORE is ephemeral blue, and 5yncri5e! is dancing yellow.
      • Cerise Bouquet is rosé, DOLLCHESTRA is blue, and Mira-Cra Park! is yellow.
  • Company Cross References: Numerous references to the Gundam series, Sunrise's other multimedia darling, can be seen scattered throughout the various anime. Most prominent in Nijigasaki High School Idol Club where Odaiba's life-sized Unicorn Gundam statue is seen on multiple occasions.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment:
    • Nijigasaki used to have monthly popularity polls where the character in last place gets featured in a segment called the "Biristar Corner", where they are given Fanservice art.
    • Punishment games for the loser/s of parlor games during live streams are this, ranging from the mundane (pop a balloon) to the bizarre (getting dressed up for Halloween by your co-hosts).
  • Coordinated Clothes:
    • In general, stage outfits for µ's, Aqours and Liella! tend to match in color and style while still being individually tailored for each idol. Color-Coded Characters is also applied to make it easier to see each idol in group shots. There are some rare exceptions, however.
    • The Nijigasaki idols don't wear matching stage outfits nearly as often, leaning more towards outfits that suit the girls' individual personalities. This is due to their focusing more on being individual performers rather than performing as a group.
  • Costume Porn: Due to the franchise's longevity, all the groups have accumulated a large repertoire of diverse costumes from their live appearances, some of which are quite intricate and pretty. They've been well-received enough to be featured in photobooks and commemorative exhibits on special occasions.
  • Cover Version: The Hasunosora High School Idol Club is the first unit to explicitly feature covers. In addition to covering VOCALOID music such as 1, 2 Fanclub, they also perform covers of Love Live! songs from other units, such as Hajimari wa Kimi no Sora, TOKIMEKI Runners, and Bokura no LIVE, Kimi to no LIFE.
  • Creator Provincialism: School idols appear to explicitly only exist as a Japanese concept in the Love Live! universe. Any foreign character who has expressed interest in becoming a school idol did so by abandoning their previous lifestyles to move to Japan, and little to no evidence exists that school idols exist in other countries despite gaining some level of popularity overseas, be it through overseas performance or through the School Idol Festival. The idea of foreign school idols was never addressed by any plotline until Nijigasaki High School Idol Club NEXT SKY, in which it is partially elaborated that invoked Values Dissonance has prevented the school idol movement from really taking off elsewhere.
  • Crossover: Too many to list, but some notable ones:
    • Rin, Hanamaru, and Rina were all voted by fans to become "SEGA Image Girls", where they were featured in merchandise alongside Sonic the Hedgehog.
    • Sunshine!! had one with virtual Collectible Card Game Shadowverse. In addition to the entire Aqours cast being featured as playable character skins, a special collaboration single called "Deep Resonance" was released alongside the Mitaiken HORIZON single, featuring Yoshiko as the center after she won a poll.
    • An unusual "meta-crossover" exists with Nippon Ichi SRPG The Guided Fate Paradox, where the entire cast of µ's was brought on to voice heroines in the game, with the cast being credited under the names of their Love Live! characters in addition to their own names. There was also an Image Song album released for the game that features µ's advertised on the cover and has Aki Hata writing the songs like the main discography, but has the girls performing as their Guided Fate Paradox characters as opposed to their Love Live! characters. There's a bit of a debate over whether the Guided Fate Paradox songs can be considered part of the Love Live! discography.
    • Aqours was featured as playable characters in Monster Strike. Like Shadowverse, a collaboration song was made to promote the crossover, which became the animated single "KU-RU-KU-RU Cruller!".
    • Aqours received a collaboration song with the virtual idol Hatsune Miku. In May 2022, a fully animated preview of the song, which is titled "BANZAI! digital trippers" was produced by famous Vocaloid producer Mitchie-M, was released on YouTube.
      • Kagamine Rin, Megurine Luka, and MEIKO join Miku and Aqours for the merchandise side of the collaboration, with the Aqours girls wearing their respective outfits. KAITO and Len don't make a physical appearance because this is Love Live, but their outfits are worn by You, Kanan (for KAITO), and Hanamaru (Len) to make up for it.
    • In 2023, the franchise held one of its biggest crossovers ever with rival idol franchise The Idolmaster in the form of a live concert in December 2023. The concert featured girls from three different video games and all four active Love Live! units performing, including the cast of THE iDOLM@STER: Shiny Colors, THE iDOLM@STER: Million Live!, THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls, Aqours, the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, Liella!, and the Hasunosora Girls' High School Idol Club.
  • Day in the Limelight: Centers for full-unit singles help to give a specific girl more focus and attention, with the songs giving them more solo parts and their associated MVs putting them front and center. For this reason, center votes are considered some of the most important votes in the franchise, and the fans are courteous enough to ensure that girls who haven't won a center vote before get a chance over the girls that have already won one. Protagonist characters never win center votes for much the same reasons, as they already get many centers in anime inserts and the story already revolves around them.
  • Deceased Parents Are the Best: The franchise only has two dead parents, both of whom are fondly remembered by their daughters: Nico's father and Ren's mother, Hana Hazuki.
    • Yohane the Parhelion has one of its own: Dia and Ruby's father.
  • Determinator:
    • A common archetype for the characters:
      • Honoka's approach to nearly any problem is throwing enthusiasm at it until it solves itself.
      • Nico will never give up on accomplishing her dreams of being an idol, regardless of circumstances.
      • Essentially Aqours itself. This is why their Arc Number is a zero: it represents their failure as a school idol group as well as their motivation to become better. This accompanies the overarching theme for the entire anime: overcoming failure. The biggest in the group is suprisingly Chika.
      • This is the reason why Ayumu is recruited in the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. Ayumu's determination to be a school idol will drive the other members to work as hard as she does. Surprisingly, the biggest one in the group is not Ayumu, but Karin.
      • Keke believes that a person has to be one to be a school idol.
    • The franchise itself. As the legend goes, the franchise's first single, "Bokura no LIVE, Kimi to no LIFE", sold a whole 434 copies on release, 10 of which were purchased by Emi Nitta's father to show support, and several of µ's early singles failed to garner any notable popularity. Everybody, even the voice actresses, believed that the project would be a failure. Fast forward a few years later, and Love Live! has transformed into what is essentially a phenomenon.
  • "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: As expected of being an idol show, the main groups (µ's, Aqours, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, Liella!, Hasunosora School Idol Club) perform most of the songs in their respective anime. Nijigasaki High School Idol Club also performs the opening theme for Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS.
  • Does Not Like Spam: Much like Trademark Favorite Food, everyone has one, but Yoshiko is the only character in the entire franchise whose least favorite food (mikans) is actually mentioned and elaborated on; ALL STARS states that she got really sick of eating them after living in the area for so long, since Numazu is famous for the mikan farms in Uchiura.
  • Drama Bomb: A recurring trope for all the main works with at least one major subplot that is far more serious in tone compared to the rest of the anime and suddenly hits its climax with little warning.
    • In Love Live!, it's Kotori deciding to leave μ's to study overseas.
    • In Sunshine!! Season 1, it's the resolution to the 3rd years subplot that uncovers the truth of their Dark and Troubled Past.
    • In Sunshine!! Season 2, it's the school closing.
    • In ALL STARS, it's the protagonist fighting with Ayumu over the School Idol Festival.
    • In Nijigasaki, it's Ayumu's Anguished Declaration of Love to Yu, born out of her fear and jealousy. Less of a bomb in this one because elements of the conflict are hinted at throughout the entire season.
    • In Superstar!!, it's the threat of Keke having to go back home if they don't win the competition. This indirectly leads to the major drama in Season 1, and is addressed directly in the one in Season 2.
    • In Link! Like! Love Live!, it's a faction in the school administration suddenly pushing for much more restrictive school rules, such as a ban on extracurricular internet use and outings, which would render school idol activities impossible.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The original nine girls were initially referred to by the group name of "Love Live!", with their group name of "µ's" being given later following reader polls. "Love Live" would become an Artifact Title after that, until the anime where it was brought back as the name of the school idol competition the characters enter.
    • Early versions of the Otonokizaka uniform originally made no distinction between character year placement with bow colors; every character either had blue bows in summer or red bows in winter. The winter uniforms (from "Snow Halation") also used a black blazer and red plaid skirt instead of simply having a navy blazer over the summer uniform.
    • Some early material for Sunshine!! depicts the characters wearing a monochrome variant of the current winter uniform with white ties for all girls. This was supplanted by the current beige and gray winter uniform, but an issue of Dengeki G's handwaves it by stating that it's the old winter uniform and is still worn briefly between November and December out of tradition, and the girls are seen wearing it in Love Live! Sunshine!! School idol diary as the winter uniform.
    • The Uranohoshi uniform gave all girls the same red ties before the anime gave the uniforms differently colored bows to indicate year placement. The year placement of some of the girls were also different prior to the anime.
    • Whenever a group is introduced, the character dynamics between the cast tend to be inconsistent to their portrayal in the anime (which usually serves as the basis for their characterizations in the rest of the franchise thereafter).
      • In "Bokura no LIVE, Kimi to no LIFE", Nico is seen handling the costumes which she will continue to do so until "Natsuiro Egao de 1,2,Jump!"note . Nozomi is also pitched as the shy one, and Umi is depicted as being the closest to Eli instead of Nozomi.
      • In "Kimi no Kokoro wo Kagayaiteru Kai?", Kanan is part of the initial group with Chika and Younote , and Mari is shown as reluctant and reserved. The anime reverses their roles; Kanan wants nothing to do with school idols, and Mari is quirky, outgoing, and enthusiastic. Riko is also seen wearing the Otonokizaka uniform throughout the PV, while she only wears it briefly in the first episode of the anime and subsequently never wears it again.
      • The characterization of the Nijigasaki idols in the early 4-panel webcomics vary depending on the author.
    • Due to the use of character voices compared to natural singing voices, there are invariably some growing pains that persist through the first few songs for some of the girls. Compare the first singles for µ's, Aqours or Nijigasaki to any of their current songs.
    • To date, µ's is the only unit in the franchise to have more or less "graduated". This is largely the result of many of its members being established talents compared to later units and thus having more external obligations, the franchise itself being unprepared to handle the massive popularity spike brought in by the School idol project! anime and the subsequent stress and workload that came along with it, and simply overall buildup of physical stress and injury for the actresses (including Emi Nitta permanently damaging her voice). With later units, the groundwork and expectations laid by µ's had clicked into place and thus the units are able to stick around and perform for longer, with Aqours outliving µ's original run despite their activities having massively slowed down in favor of newer units.
  • Fanservice:
    • Surprisingly, the franchise has a whole generally tends to avert this, taking care to avoid unnecessary fanservice outside of the requisite Beach Episode. The Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is notably less conservative in this department compared to μ's and Aqours, even designating Karin as the group's Ms. Fanservice (although her Ms. Fanservice role is downplayed in the anime). The manga features much more fanservice than any other work in the franchise, contrasting the mostly tame anime and games.
    • As an extension of this, you will never, ever see a panty shot in any material. The anime even explicitly ignores the laws of gravity in improbable ways to avoid skirt flips.
  • Fictional Flag: The Love Live victory flag appears in multiple series and features the text "Love Live Victory" on a red background with gold laurels, an ornate gold pattern, a red ribbon, and a gold fringe.
  • Foregone Conclusion:
    • When groups are revealed, one of the main cast members being an Obstructive Bureaucrat Student Council President means that they will have to join the group at some point regardless of their initial opposition to school idols. The only exception are Nijigasaki, where one of the main cast members is the student council president in disguise, and Hasunosora, where the student council president is not part of the main cast.
    • The protagonists are never allowed to win Love Live in Season 1 of their anime since it is essentially the ultimate accomplishment for a school idol unit and doing so would complicate story direction for Season 2 since they'd have very little else to do in terms of a major accomplishment. Once again not a major problem for Nijigasaki since they don't compete in Love Live in the first place.

    G - L 
  • Genre Roulette: In a broader sense, while the franchise has its roots in the idol genre, there is a large amount of music variety, especially with the use of subunits and solos, which are allowed to have their own styles unique to each group/character.
    • μ's has its own standout examples like "LOVELESS WORLD", but usually sticks to traditional idol music.
    • Aqours started with traditional idol music but has since expanded to different styles as the anime went on with songs such as "Sunshine Pikka Pika Ondo" (ondo), "Daydream Warrior" (EDM), and "Thrilling One Way" (rock). After the release of Over The Rainbow, the group delved in more experimental and modern styles. "KU-RU-KU-RU Cruller" is a stand-out example in this regard.
    • Nijigasaki, mostly made of soloists, uses unique styles for every character and as such has the most variety, with hot and catchy EDM like "Eutopia" and "Starlight", rock ballads like "Solitude Rain", and traditional Japanese music like "Aion no Uta". Their group songs typically abide to standard idol fare, but their B-sides can get more experimental in nature; "Ryouran! Victory Road" is a prominent example.
    • Liella! mostly follows μ's with their discography, with "Nonfiction!!" as one of their highlights.
  • Gratuitous English: Common enough in song titles and lyrics. Special mention goes to "Yuujou No Change" where the "No" part of the title is written in katakana, which means it is actually the English "No" instead of the hiragana "no" (の).
  • Gray Rain of Depression: A franchise constant, typically present during the Once a Season Drama Bomb.
  • Hereditary Hairstyle: If a girl's mother appears, you can bet that she has the exact same hairstyle as her daughter.
  • Hairstyle Inertia: Every single character has the same hairstyle as children as they do now with the exception of Nico, Riko, and Kozue. Amusingly, Nico and Riko have swapped hairstyles; Nico had long hair as a child (only on her SIF card) while Riko had pigtails. Nico currently has pigtails while Riko has her hair down.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: A driving motivation typically associated with the leaders; they jump into the world of school idols because they view themselves as normal girls and feel like they might become something more if they become a school idol, with a twist associated to each one.
    • Honoka is, for the most part driven to save her school and is thus willing to do basically anything.
    • Chika is inspired by µ's success, being ordinary girls able to save their school. She's also driven by an inferiority complex through the anime story, and finding their own "radiance" is the bulk of the main plot for Season 1.
    • Takasaki Yu feels that she's drifting aimlessly in life, and basically becomes the Nijigasaki Club's producer as a way to find the dream that actually drives her.
    • Ayumu initially ventures upon the school idol world as a way to share her true emotions, and perform exclusively for Yu, her dear childhood friend. Outgrowing this mindset is part of her mini-arc through the anime's 1st season.
    • Kanon thinks that she's too normal, and sets out to become a school idol to find something only her ordinary self can do. She already does have a special skill in singing although she also has massive Performance Anxiety, so it's more of a self-esteem issue on her part.
    • Kaho, due to ill health as a child, hadn't even had a chance to be normal, let alone special. Going off to a boarding school like Hasunosora was her big chance to make something special out of her high school life.
  • Idol Genre: The Trope Codifier for the idol genre in anime during The New '10s. While obviously not the first, the massive success of School idol project paved the way for the idol genre becoming mainstream among anime.
  • Idol Singer: The basic premise is idol singers who are also high school girls, thus combining this trope with a Schoolgirl Series. Instead of being professional singers signed on to a company, the characters form school idol clubs that perform in the Love Live competition to promote their schools.
  • Image Song:
    • Commonly known as "solos", each main girl in the franchise has at least one song where they are the only singer. In most cases, the song is tailored to the respective singer's vocal strengths, such as "New winding road" (a rock ballad where Aina Suzuki uses her deeper, more powerful voice) and "In this unstable world" (where Aika Kobayashi uses both inflections of her Yoshiko voice).
    • Nijigasaki's main gimmick is that their entire discography consists almost exclusively of these, with far fewer full unit songs.
  • Inevitable Tournament:
    • The titular Love Live, a bi-annual competition that invites school idols from across Japan to compete in a winner-takes-all tournament. Stages include the qualifiers (plus preliminaries in Superstar!!), regionals, and then nationals, with each stage involving a live performance judged in real-time. The ultimate goal of almost every school idol unit in the franchise (except Nijigasaki, for personal reasons) is to win Love Live for one reason or another.
    • While Love Live is never addressed in ALL STARS, Season 2 winds up introducing a replacement called the School Idol Exhibition, which is essentially just Love Live with slightly different rules and Nijigasaki participates in it. This later becomes the main focus of Season 3 as the girls prep to compete in the tournament against µ's and Aqours.
  • Informed Attribute: Official art makes it clear that the three measurements given for every girl are basically just suggestions and not a hard guideline as to how the characters are meant to look, with only bust width actually having a noticeable impact on character design. For example, Ai's measurements border on downright unrealistic, but all of her artwork portrays her with a very similar body type to every other girl.
  • Intra-Franchise Crossover: This was one of the selling points for Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS, aside from being Nijigasaki's home game. Unlike the main SIF games, where each school sticks to its own stories, ALL STARS actively had the casts mingle, with every event guaranteed to have at least one idol from each school.
    • On the live performance side, though, the franchise is notorious for being shy about collabs between series, possibly due to divisive fan reactions during the transition from µ's to Aqours. It took until 2023 for this to break down, with Hasunosora doing covers of other Love Live! groups' songs, and then Ijigen Fes allowing members of one group to participate in the songs of another group in the process of collaborating with the Idolmaster cast. Unit Koshien 2024 became the first of the franchise's own events to feature mixed-series performances of each group's songs.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: The bulk of the plot in both anime series involves the leader and her friends recruiting other members into her school idol group. The full cast for each group is revealed long before the anime even premieres, meaning that following the franchise in any capacity will result in knowing every girl before they even appear on-screen in the anime. And if you didn't follow the series before, then the Spoiler Opening will provide the same effect.
  • Later-Installment Weirdness: The Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is as of current the only group that has actual major discrepancies as to how the characters are portrayed in mediums other than magazines or manga. Both the anime and game versions of the cast are addressed separately in different ways, such as the Real Face Photo Essay Series being specifically based on the anime characters while the yonkoma are based on the game characters, as well as the option of addressing the protagonist as a nameless character or as Yu Takasaki varying based on what version of the club is being discussed.
  • The Leader:
    • Honoka and Chika are ones for their respective groups. Notably, they both fall into the same archetype (Headstrong/Charismatic) and have similar personalities at face value. Although Episode 8 of Sunshine!! shows the effect trying too hard to be positive can have on oneself.
    • Played With in the Nijigasaki part of the franchise, as while the ALL-STARS protagonist/Takasaki Yu is the official leader in-story, it's Ayumu who takes the bulk of focus through most media, and even the anime's merchandise gives her the role. The protagonist/Yu fits the Levelheaded/Charismatic types as she is more prone to step back and get a grip on the situation over Honoka and Chika's tendencies to just rush in with enthusiasm, while Ayumu fits the Charismatic archetype for the most part, being the figurehead for the club.
    • Kanon and Keke take turns being The Leader depending on the story arc since they have different leader archetypes with Kanon being the Charismatic type and Keke being the Headstrong type.
    • Though Kaho is the protagonist for Hasunosora, The Leader is Kozue. She's the Levelheaded type, being the most organized and responsible of the group, especially in comparison to the other second-years.
  • Letter Motif:
    • All three earlier leader characters feature the kanji "高" somewhere in their family names: Honoka Kousaka, Chika Takami, and Yu Takasaki.
    • Kanon Shibuya shares the same "ka" sound as Honoka and Chika, as does Kaho Hinoshita.
  • Licensed Game: School idol festival, a mobile Rhythm Game, School idol paradise, a Play Station Vita Rhythm Game, Puchiguru, a mobile puzzle game, and ALL STARS, a mobile Rhythm Game and RPG hybrid. While Puchiguru eventually closed, SIF was popular enough to spawn an arcade spin-off.
  • Lyrical Dissonance:
    • The "Smile" subunits love this. Quite a few songs from them have very upbeat and cheery music but bittersweet or depressing lyrics.
    • SENTIMENTAL StepS stands out because the instrumentals are cheery and nostalgic but the lyrics are about close friends not even being able to recognize each other anymore after they grew up.
    • At the opposite end, after school NAVIGATORS is a heavy metal song about where to go out and eat after school.

    M - R 
  • Massive Multiplayer Crossover:
    • Love Live! Fest featured µ's, Aqours, Saint Snow, and Nijigasaki performing in the same concert, with each group taking turns on-stage.
    • The "Love Live! Series Presents COUNTDOWN Love Live! 2021→2022 ～LIVE with a smile!～" concert featured Aqours, Nijigasaki, and Liella! at the same concert. In addition, it also featured a theme song, "LIVE with a smile!", that has the unique distinction of being performed by all 26 girls.
    • The "Ijigen Fes iDOLM@STER x Love Live! Uta Gassen" concert featured 8 groups from across the two major idol franchises (even including the School idol Musical cast as guests) for a total of 118 named performers over two days.
    • A second "Love Live! Series Presents" concert, "Unit Koshien 2024", featured the sub-units of all four active groups, plus rival groups Saint Snow and Sunny Passion. As per the name, it was set up to resemble a baseball game, with innings and an actual veteran sportscaster as one of the emcees.
  • Merchandise-Driven: As one of Sunrise's multimedia darlings, Love Live has a massive focus on merchandise. The multiple animation productions tie-in with continuous merchandise releases, such as CDs with the songs that the idols perform in anime, waffers with collectible cards, nesoberi plushies, keychains and even more bizarre paraphernalia like nippers and fidget spinners. The bulk of the sales, however, comes comes from the CD and Bluray releases that accompany each anime series, which contain lottery codes for live concerts; it's not uncommon to see fans purchase 10 or more CDs while attempting to win a ticket. Likewise, the mobile games hold multiple events to promote the anime, and the anime series promote the games with ads and streams. The franchise has stayed in the top 10 of the best selling franchises in the Oricon chart since 2015 thanks to this.
  • Modesty Shorts: Extremely common. Every single performance outfit with a skirt has one, and for obvious reasons any real-life concert always has them.
  • The Movie: The first two anime have a movie that acts as the Grand Finale for their series: Love Live! The School Idol Movie for μ's, and Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow for Aqours. Nijigasaki, meanwhile, has a movie trilogy in the works.
  • Multiple Demographic Appeal: While the series is primarily aimed at a young adult male audience (being an idol genre series with heavy Les Yay Ship Tease), it's also at heart a Slice of Life with drama and genuinely heartfelt moments, and unlike most idol franchises with a male audience the franchise tries as much as possible to be family-friendly. This has succeeded in garnering a smaller but still-substantial appeal among women and young girls, with multiple cast members from later groups even being Promoted Fangirls. This is also commonly cited as a possible reason as to why the series always does teasing and no actual romance due to not wanting to alienate a portion of its fanbase.
  • New Rules as the Plot Demands: The Love Live contest itself has never had a consistent set of rulings laid out, which allows writers to invent new rulings out of whole cloth just to add drama to the setting, or as a narrative device used to justify developments. Of note;
    • The contest goes from being held twice a year in School Idol Project and Sunshine (which had to fit an entire school-year in two seasons) to once per year in Superstar (as now one year is covered per season).
    • Early in School Idol Project is stablished that audience feedback is an important part of the qualifiers phase, if not the only significant factor. Superstar Season 2 adds a shonen-tournament styled phase to the mix to make Margarete compete with Sunny Passion in the qualifiers, even though this makes zero sense when scrutinized, as the tournament-styled competition was stablished to only happen at the end of the contest, both competitors hail from different districts and Sunny Passion is the reigning champion while Margarete is a newcomer.
    • The first season of Sunshine ends with a performance by Aqours that has them add all their classmates to it. Before this, Riko mentions a never-heard before ruling that prohibits anyone but those that applied beforehand from singing on stage, and also from anyone else being close to it. Aqours decides to perform with the whole class involved anyway, leading to the reveal on early Season 2 that they were indeed disqualified.
  • No Antagonist: Most canons play this straight, as the girls are generally working for a cause rather than against another person, and even when another is involved it's out of their control and they don't usually mean harm. Later media plays with this; ALL STARS has Shioriko (Season 1) and Lanzhu (Season 2), who have clashing ideals with the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, and Link! Like! Love Live! has a committee of Fun Hating Confiscating Adults.
  • Non-Idle Rich: Maki, Mari, Lanzhu, and Kozue have a large amount of wealth at their disposal for various reasons. How much they actually use or display their wealth varies as well, but that doesn't deviate from the fact that they all operate as school idols for fun:
    • Maki gets really uncomfortable when showing off her family's money and generally tries not to make it known that she's even wealthy at all. Her money and family's connections do end up being used throughout the franchise, although sparingly.
    • Mari, conversely, spends quite well as her family owns an international hotel chain. Her house is her very own hotel, and she has a tendency to throw money at weird things like buying her way to Uranohoshi's school director position and making her famous $10,000 Stewshine. She spends little on actual school idol-related affairs, however.
    • Lanzhu (in ALL STARS) is a textbook Rich Bitch who can and is willing to spend as much money as she can to win over other girls and have staff and production values on par with and even exceeding professional idol groups. The Association's club room looks less like a club room and more like a penthouse suite. The Rich Bitch aspect is downplayed in the anime, where she is still clearly wealthy but her issues with the club are unrelated to her money.
    • Kozue's family wealth doesn't come up much at all, due to everyone boarding at the school, and it's their musical background that is the aspect that's most brought up. Nonetheless, she provides the obligatory opulent vacation home for the group to have their beach episode at.
  • Non-Uniform Uniform: Some characters will wear their school uniform differently from everyone else:
    • Nico wears a long-sleeved pink cardigan under her blazer; she also wears it during the summer, unlike most of the other members of μ's who wear the standard cream-colored vest with their summer uniforms. Rin doesn't wear the vest at all with her summer uniform.
    • While most members of Aqours wear their uniforms normally, Hanamaru wears a yellow cardigan over her winter uniform, while Mari sports a pale green vest over her summer uniform.
    • Most of the Nijigasaki idols have a distinctive way to wear their uniform; of these, only Ayumu and Shizuku wear the uniform straight without any additional flairs, while Karin and Emma only have very minor changes to theirs (wearing tights and wearing the blazer open, respectively).
      • Yuu doesn't tuck her shirt inside her skirt and wears black thigh-high socks. She also wears a grey cardigan in her winter uniform.
      • Ai wears a brown sweater over her winter uniform instead of the standard black blazer. In her summer uniform, she wears the sweater tied around her waist.
      • Kasumi wears her winter uniform partially buttoned with a yellow sweater underneath the blazer.
      • Kanata wears her winter uniform completely unbuttoned with a red sweater underneath. Her tie is also sloppily tied compared to the others. In her summer uniform, she wears a yellow cardigan over her uniform.
      • Rina wears an oversized blue hoodie in place of a blazer or vest. She also wears thigh-high socks instead of knee-high socks.
      • Lanzhu wears a Custom Uniform 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. This is slightly altered in the anime where her cardigan lacks the gold lining.
      • Mia wears a navy and white letterman jacket in place of a blazer over her winter uniform.
    • Most of Liella! wear their uniforms normally, though the school does not seem to have any rules on socks/tights, given the variety of styles seen. Mei is the only exception otherwise, as she doesn't wear the school ribbon and leaves her shirt collar open.
    • For Hasunosora, Sayaka wears a cardigan over her uniform, Hime wears a hoodie over hers, and Tsuzuri has her choker and gloves.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: A running theme for the Student Council Presidents in the series, who all oppose the main characters' School Idol Club idea.
    • Eli rejects the idea on the basis that there's not enough members. Later on, she also rejects the formation of the club, citing that there's already an existing idol-related club at school. On Vice President Nozomi's suggestion, µ's ultimately joins the existing club, the Idol Research Club, instead.
    • Dia flatly denies Chika's request due to not having enough members and just not wanting her to form a School Idol Club. Mari, the school director, gives them the go ahead anyway after Aqours proves their merit. Ultimately, this is subverted as later events showed that Dia has been helping Chika's group all along.
    • Nana Nakagawa insists that the protagonist and Kasumi get 10 members to keep the School Idol Club open. While they ultimately end up finding only eight, Nakagawa herself rejoins as the 9th member, under her alias "Setsuna Yuki", and the player character, with a bit of push from the others, joins as the 10th member and club president. Subverted with her anime counterpart, who allows Yu to reform the club with no strings attached but insists on not being a part of it. Yu manages to convince her to return, however.
    • Shioriko Mifune intends to disband the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club because of a strong negative opinion of school idols, perceiving the entire thing as a fruitless endeavor. Just like every other student council president, the Club ultimately manages to win her over, although it takes much more effort on their part to do so.
    • Ren Hazuki denies Kanon and Keke's repeated requests to form a School Idol Club because she believes that school idols are amateurish compared to Yuigaoka's high standards for music and doesn't want a couple of general course students jeopardizing the school's reputation. The director steps in and gives them the go ahead after the two prove their merit, and it's eventually revealed that Ren's own mother was a school idol; Ren was mislead to believe that her mother resented being a school idol since she couldn't find any traces of Hana's keepsakes in Yuigaoka and believed thusly that school idols had no place in the school.
    • As far as Link! Like! is concerned, Sachi Oogami is a full inversion of the series tradition of having the student council president as an initial antagonist under this trope. Like Setsuna, she was once a club member who retired out of strained relationships, but even then, she's instead trying to do her best to protect the club from closing. Though also unlike her predecessors, her position and rules at Hasunosora also mean she can't re-join the club, less so with her graduation.
  • Once a Season: The franchise has several recurring events/tropes, Notably, Link! Like! Love Live! subverts most, if not all of these.
    • The main girl having to slowly recruit most of the main cast members except the obligatory Student Council President one by one over the course of several episodes. ALL STARS does this but at an extremely accelerated pace. Yohane the Parhelion, despite not being a standard Love Live! story, still winds up doing this anyway (with Yohane taking the place of leader).
    • An Obstructive Bureaucrat Student Council President that attempts to prevent the main cast from forming a School Idol Club before eventually joining the club themselves (with Nijigasaki having two of them, no less). They are also typically the last member to join the unit (with the exception of Setsuna in the anime).
    • A gimmicky character who stands out for either being weird or having some unusual trait.
    • A trio of friends that are minor side characters, are acquainted with the main heroine, and have Numerical Theme Naming. ALL STARS replaces this with the Student Council Members, who serve mostly the same role but are Always Identical Twins, are friends with Shioriko rather than the protagonist, and use Temporal Theme Naming instead.
    • Cast Herding via year groups.
    • A Character Focus episode for most of the main girls, sometimes before they join and sometimes after, and on the off-chance someone gets two.
    • The second or third episode generally serves as the inaugural first real performance for the group that doubles as a test to see if the group is worthy. Something typically goes wrong during the performance (usually the lights getting cut), but with encouragement from their friends and the audience the group manages to pull through and make the performance a success.
    • The 10th episode of the first season of each anime is a summer-themed episode where the girls embark on a training camp venture.
    • The 11th episode of the first season of each anime featuring a huge Drama Bomb, involving the 2nd years/leading characters.
    • The group's very first unit single will be reused as an insert song, usually with symbolic value.
    • Each group is composed of a trio of subunits (at minimum), each of whom adhere almost strictly to one of three general themes. These are commonly referred to as "Smile", "Cool", and "Pure" by fans, after the attributes seen in School idol festival.
      • Smile: Focuses on mainly upbeat, happy and energetic music. Oftentimes engages in Lyrical Dissonance on occasion, where their cheery atmosphere can mask dark or somber themes in their lyrics. May get one or two songs that deviate from their standard genre, typically a slower, more downbeat song. Featured in Printemps, CYaRon!, A•ZU•NA, 5yncri5e!, and Mira-Cra Park!.
      • Pure: Focuses on mid-range, gentle and soft tones and lyrics. There's some flexibility within this department as to how this nature can be expressed, such as variations of techno or traditional style. The subunit name typically adheres to Floral Theme Naming. Featured in lilywhite, AZALEA, QU4RTZ, KALEIDOSCORE, and Cerise Bouquet.
      • Cool: Focuses on hard, powerful styles of music. The wide range of available genres enables a ton of musical variety, between hard rock, symphonic rock, metal, electronic, and more, meaning every subunit utilizes a unique take on the "Cool" theme. Featured in BiBi, Guilty Kiss, DiverDiva, CatChu!, and DOLLCHESTRA. Saint Snow (if considered a subunit) and R3BIRTH can also be classified under this genre.
  • One Game for the Price of Two:
    • School idol paradise was one game for the price of three. The game came in Printemps, lilywhite, and BiBi versions, each with unique cover art and songs from each subunit as well as solos from their members. Beyond that the content in each version was otherwise virtually identical.
    • A trend seen in Superstar!! starting from their first single, "Hajimari wa Kimi no Sora", which comes in two different versions; the first version comes with the third song "Dreaming Energy" and two group voice dramas, while the second version comes with the third song "Watashi no Symphony" and five solo voice dramas.
  • One-Gender School: Basically every school that's featured is an all-girls' school; one episode of Sunshine!! even has an all-female class of kindergarteners. This helps in the Chromosome Casting department since it means male characters need not appear for 98% of the show.
  • The Original Series: All of the anime series actually have the subtitle School idol project in them, but to help differentiate the series with μ's in it from its sequels, it is the only one that is actually referred to as "School Idol Project".
  • P.O.V. Sequel:
    • Love Live! School idol diary retells some of the events of the Love Live! School idol project anime from the perspective of the various cast members while also fleshing out their backstories and characters.
    • Riko's chapter in Love Live! Sunshine!! School idol diary is a retelling of the manga's Uchiura Children's Beach Festival event with more of Riko's inner thoughts added. The manga adaptation even flat-out recycles some of the panels from the Sunshine!! manga.
  • Proper Tights with a Skirt: Hanayo, Hanamaru, Karin, Kanon (at least, initially), Kinako, Tsuzuri, and Ginko sport this style. In Karin's case at least, it helps bring attention to her shapely figure.
  • Punny Name: "μ's" is a pun on the word "muse", while "Aqours" combines "aqua" and "ours" (but is also pronounced "aqua"). "Liella" is a combination of the French word "lier" (meaning "connection") and "brillante" (meaning "radiance").
  • Real-Place Background: Used frequently, with most locations being accurate to their real-life counterparts and many major landmarks and buildings being based on real locales and given fictional names. This results in many fans trying to visit the real-life versions of these places, causing a Tourist Bump effect for the city of Numazu in particular.
  • The Rival:
    • A-RISE and Saint Snow to μ's and Aqours respectively. Both evolve into a Friendly Rivalry after they realize their competitors' potential.
    • Downplayed with Sunny Passion. While they are introduced as the rivals for Liella!, they are friendly with them from the start and act as their mentors given their experience.
      • However, Superstar!! Season 2 would play this straight with Margarete Wien, who displays the most antagonistic attitude out of all the rivals in the series, and only defrosts somewhat at the very end of the season.
  • Running Gag: The sunglasses and face mask "disguise", worn by one character at least once per anime.

    S - Z 
  • Saving the Orphanage:
    • The plot in both Love Live! Season 1 and the entirety of Sunshine!! involves the cast attempting to win Love Live to give their high school enough exposure to save it from the brink of closure. Unlike Otonokizaka, Uranohoshi doesn't make it to the end.
    • ALL STARS averts this as since the idea is all three groups being active simultaneously, shutting down any of the schools wouldn't work in the context of the story.
    • Superstar inverts it by being set in a high school that was already shut down before being reopened. The school does have a few issues trying to stay open but it's only relevant to Ren's story as her family owns the school.
  • School Festival: Festivals in this series tend to be associated with particularly heavy drama for some odd reason, as both School idol project and Sunshine!! have major story turning points occur during or around school festivals.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!:
    • Subverted by Kotori, who is the daughter of Otonokizaka's director, Director Minami, but is treated the same as every other student.
    • Played painfully straight by Lanzhu, the daughter of Nijigasaki's director, who uses her position to get essentially whatever she wants and boss around the Student Council. Averted in the anime where there is no apparent connection between her and the school's administration.
    • Played straight, yet positively, with Sachi, who is the granddaughter of Hasunosora's director. The rules she's screwing are the ones that restrict the students' freedom and activities.
  • Second Year Protagonist: Honoka, Chika, the ALL STARS protagonist, Ayumu and Yu Takasaki are all 2nd years. Later series have strayed away from this, with Kanon and Kaho starting as 1st years and moving up grades as their story goes on.
  • Serial Escalation: The competitive stakes of Love Live! increase dramatically with each series. In School idol project, the competition was decently popular, but as the modern concept of school idols was still catching on competition was nowhere near as fierce as future Love Live!s. In Sunshine!!, however, it's stated that the competition has gotten so popular that there's now five times as many competitors compared to the first, and in Superstar!! there's so much competition that there's now a qualifier round.
  • Ship Tease: The franchise literally oozes this at the seams. You can probably find justification for nearly any character pairing possible somewhere, but some particularly notable ones:
    • Nozomi/Eli is probably the closest you can get to a "canon" ship in School Idol Project. Maki/Nico is also pushed fairly hard in Season 2 due to its fan popularity.
    • The Chika/Riko pairing in Sunshine is notable for being the basis for an entire subplot where the deepening relationship between them serves as Character Development for both girls. At least, until said ship gets promptly thrown aside in Season 2 in favor of the Riko/Yoshiko ship.
    • The Kanan/Mari pairing is the closest you can get to a "canon" ship in Sunshine.
    • In both ALL STARS and the anime, it's shown right from the get-go that the protagonist/Yu and Ayumu are incredibly close. Not only does Ayumu get a little miffed when another girl holds Yu's attention, some of the moments between them in the anime are quite intimate (especially in the first episode), and the fight between them in Chapter 15 of the game is basically framed as a break-up. It gets to the point where the show effectively kills the subtext entirely and more or less goes straight for a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship.
    • A lot of Nijigasaki material pushes very specific pairings although which pairs are pushed depends on the media with the only ship that consistently gets focused on being Ayumu and her childhood friend. Pretty much the only character who isn't distinctly paired with anyone is Setsuna, although Setsuna/Yu is a popular alternative for those who prefer it over the Ayumu pairing.
    • For Superstar!!, there's Keke/Sumire, who get the major drama in the first two seasons, and Shiki/Mei, whose relationship is the focus of their spotlight episode.
  • Skinship Grope:
    • Nozomi's trademark. Punishing the other girls by fondling their breasts becomes a Running Gag.
    • Mari does this as well, although she generally limits it to Kanan and Dia. She tries it on You once and gets judo flipped for the trouble. This aspect of her eventually gets phased out by Season 2 due to toning down her quirky side in favor of drama.
    • Karin in the early days of Nijigasaki. Like Mari, this aspect of hers eventually gets phased out to focus on her Spirited Competitor side instead.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The franchise varies on the scale based on what series you're watching. School idol project and Superstar!! has a lean towards idealistic but hovers toward the middle typically, Sunshine!! veers far towards the cynicism end, and Nijigasaki is even more idealistic than the original series. ALL STARS strikes a balance somewhere in the middle. Link! Like! Love Live! surprisingly hovers closer to the cynical end, offering realistic problems that require equally realistic solutions that cannot be easily solved by The Power of Friendship.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad: A very unfortunate recurring problem with the series is that in media that requires a concrete, overarching story (mostly the anime), the writers very explicitly favor certain cast members over others for the purposes of moving the story. While Day in the Limelight episodes do help develop the characters that get less screentime, major story beats will almost never happen in the same episodes where a non-major character gets development.
    • In School idol project, the story pretty much revolves exclusively around the 2nd years (as Honoka is also The Protagonist). The third years also play a non-insignificant role in the story but later drop off as they are recruited.
    • In Sunshine!!, you can quite literally cut out four of the nine members (You and the 1st years) and the story will still function as intended. It's even worse in Season 2, where the entire plot is carried by Mari and Chika with some input from Kanan and Dia.
    • ALL STARS likes Setsuna. A lot. Ayumu as well due to having the closest connection to the main character, and Kasumi does get some level of meaningful screentime, but the rest just kinda hover in the background and speak up once or twice per cutscene. Season 2 makes an active attempt to avert this by having several of the other club members besides Setsuna and Ayumu get involved in one way or another.
    • Nijigasaki downplays this due to the lack of a real overarching plot. Setsuna and Ayumu star in some mini-arcs that go a little more in-depth compared to the other girls, but otherwise each girl gets a chance to shine in their own Character Focus.
    • Superstar!! focuses on Kanon a lot. Not as bad as Sunshine!! though, as each character gets an arc to themselves.
  • Standardized Leader:
    • Honoka and Chika's schtick is their fairly generic personalities: upbeat, overly cheerful go-getters that help bring the group together.
    • The Player Character of ALL STARS fills this role; she has very little direct characterization and zero backstory, but when in her element is highly analytical and persuasive to the other members, which makes the school idols easily gravitate towards her for support.
    • Subverted with Kaho, who shares most of the standard "leader" traits (although she is more mood-swingy than typical) but does not serve as her group's leader. The actual unit leader is Kozue, who is The Ace.
  • Student Council President: Eli Ayase and later Honoka in Otonokizaka, Dia Kurosawa in Uranohoshi, Nana Nakagawa (Setsuna Yuki's true identity) and later Shioriko Mifune in Nijigasaki, Ren Hazuki in Yuigaoka and Sachi Oogami in Hasunosora. Despite typically having the final say in most school-related decisions, they aren't an Absurdly Powerful Student Council and are at the mercy of their school's directors (Principal Minami for Otonokizaka, Mari Ohara for Uranohoshi, the Director for Yuigaoka, and Sachi's grandfather for Hasunosora).
  • Stylistic Suck: For videos rendered in full 3D like the ALL STARS opening, the "Tokimeki RUNNERS" MV, and the "smile smile ship Start!" MV, the non-dancing segments of the videos will intentionally pull back the framerates of the characters themselves to emulate the appearance of 2D animation.
  • Team Pet: Every unit has an animal friend voiced by recurring actress Anna Mugiho. μ's has Otonokizaka's alpacas, Aqours has Chika's pet dog Shiitake, Nijigasaki has the stray cat Hanpen, and Liella! has Kanon's pet owl Manmaru. While Hasunosora does have a pet otter cared for by the school in general, it hasn't appeared often, and isn't voiced by anyone yet.
  • Token Minority: Common to all four groups.
    • μ's has Eli Ayase (part Russian from her grandmother).
    • Aqours has Mari Ohara (part Italian-American from her father).
    • Initially, Nijigasaki only has Emma Verde (Swiss-Italian). ALL STARS adds two more: Mia Taylor (American) and Lanzhu Zhong (Chinese-Japanese).
    • Liella! has two minorities: Kanon Shibuya (part Spanish from her grandmother) and Keke Tang (Chinese, but part Japanese from her mother).
    • Hasunosora is the only one that averts this, with the closest to fill the role being Rurino, having spent some years to study in America.
  • Token Rich Student: As stated under Non-Idle Rich, each group has one, two of them also being a Token Minority. μ's has Maki, Aqours has Mari, Nijigasaki has Lanzhu, and Hasunosora has Kozue.
  • Trademark Favorite Food
    • Everyone has a favorite food, but only Chika, Hanayo, Emma, and Chisato have it as a major character element and is depicted as their official symbols: Chika's mikans (a type of Japanese mandarin), Hanayo's rice, Emma's bread, and Chisato's takoyaki.
    • Kasumi loves bread; one of her ALL STARS cards depicts her holding bags full of bread, she bakes bread as a hobby and uses some of them to prank the other members.
    • Subverted with Honoka. She's depicted in the anime as loving bread ("Kyou mo pan ga umai!") but her official profile states that her favorite food is strawberries.
  • Tsundere: Aside from Maki who's well-known for this trope, many other characters across the franchise display signs of this, such as Dia in Sunshine and Shioriko in Nijigasaki.
  • Verbal Tic: Rin Hoshizora and Hanamaru Kunikida: "nya" and "zura" respectively.
  • Virtual Celebrity: This is the gimmick behind the Hasunosora Girls' High School Idol Club, under the title "Virtual School Idols". Rather than getting a dedicated anime, they instead get a dedicated app with which fans will use to interface with the characters. This is reflected in their character promos, where the characters are animated with 3D motion capture not unlike a Virtual Youtuber.
  • World of Technicolor Hair: While some characters have hair colors that can be considered normal in real life (like black or various shades of brown and auburn), others have hair in improbable shades of red, blue and purple (or in Rina's case, pink). However, it's often implied that those with blue or purple hair are really black-haired and their hair colors are just stylized to make them stand out.

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