So when HTT's set ended I ran up to
@mczub
's block to hug him and cry. The people around us started clapping. I then held up my K-ON live towel and it became thunderous applause. I must have hugged a dozen people.
That was a moment.
On this week's Uraraji, Arisha told us a bit about the making of the legendary Cotton Candy Ei Ei O performance.
Way back when the song first came out, she remembers that during one of the livestreams someone mentioned it would be funny if Dia appeared in it.
#浦ラジ
I just got the Ijigen blade in the mail and this thing is incredibly cursed. Franchise buttons are good in theory, except when you have to press it up to 28 times to reach your oshi if you're a ShinyP with no way of going back a step.
Just found out Gamers Machida closed down a few days ago. I will never forget how crazy the manager was for Emma. Will miss having this store close by for when I wanted specific tokuten
Some fun stories from this week's Uraraji on Love Live Fest:
-Furi, Kyan, and Shuka went to Niji 1st. They all seem to be Ai oshis.
-They view Niji as underclassmen. Kyan called them kids.
-Aqours was dancing along to their songs backstage.
MIRAI TICKET is my favorite Aqours song despite it being far from their best one. Sure, the other finale songs like Water Blue New World are more interesting, exciting songs, but I'd argue they're nowhere near as important as this one.
Just got out of the School Idol Musical! Wasn't sure exactly what to expect going in, but at its core it is a Love Live story in a different format, and with more focus on the parental relationships. Actresses for the moms/principals kinda stole the show.
Finally had a chance to visit Taiyou no Megumi, the restaurant outside of Sapporo owned by Suzuki Aina's family. Great omurice, and Ainya's grandma was really sweet. Told her I'd definitely be back on my next business trip.
There's something telling about what each group did on their trip.
AZALEA: Classy horse drawn carriage ride through Rome
CYaRon: Immersing themselves in Japanese history
Guilty Kiss: Milked a cow
As flawed as Puchiguru was, I will always love the game for having this image because
1. They have four Ruby nesos between the three of them
2. Dia clearly wants more.
After mulling over some scenes Love Live Superstar ep 4, I think I have the answer to the question that has been bugging me since episode 1:
What the fuck is Ren's deal?
Short version: Her mom was a school idol, perhaps the original school idol, or first Love Live winner.
I wanted the proper #スクフェスAC experience at home so I spent the past week building a custom controller.
Really proud of how the control panel to handle menus turned out.
Since I'm always curious about who's most popular in
#Liella
, I counted the number of flower stands dedicated to each member at the Saitama show. Surprisingly balanced outside of Kanon's clear lead, which I feel has shrunk a bit since 1st live
Italy in Love Live Sunshine: A beautiful land of art, culture, and music. Also all the characters are gay.
Italy in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: A lawless hellscape where only the strong survive. Also all the characters are gay.
There's a hashtag starting up on JP Twitter where they're listening to AZALEA songs instead of being bummed that it was cancelled. I'll ride that wave.
#AZALEA
を聴こうよ
Nijigasaki OVA non-spoiler quick thoughts:
-short but sweet
-4 new songs all pretty good, one will be an anikura favorite
-Hayashi Coco brings the same vibe to Setsuna that Tomoriru did, even if the voice isn't exactly the same. She's settling into the role just fine #虹ヶ咲
Now that I'm older, I'm realizing there are multiple moments in K-ON where the viewer is meant to empathize with the teacher as she looks wistfully at her students enjoying their youth.
So I decided to do some statistics on Love Live ships. Here are the number of each pairing on Pixiv.
Color coding:
Most popular: green
Very popular: orange
Popular: yellow
Notable: blue
Rarest of rarepair: purple
So now that day 2 is over, I can talk about CYaRon 1st live in more detail. It wasn't hype in the same way that Guilty Kiss was, but it was fun and goofy in the way I expect them to be.
On day 2, Anchan was crying listening to snow halation from backstage before Aqours set. She also ran from the green room to backstage to hear μ's live instead of just watching it on the TV.
Nonchan told a story about how she attended an Aqours fan meeting and instead of talking to them when they were waving off the crowd, she showed Furirin her Ruby drawing. Furirin vaguely remembers someone doing that. #ラブライブANN
Furirin threw a dart to decide where she would film her next special and of all the places in the world including Russia, Hawaii, and Italy... she landed on Saitama.
#ふりりんは文化
#降幡愛生誕祭2020
The unit names for the Aqours Duo/Trio CD are based off 4 kanji idioms. I went through and translated them so you can see how the actual meaning compares to the English "translation" next to them.
#lovelive
The Aqours/Chiba Lotte Marines collab game was good fun! The final score was embarrassing, but it was still a good day hanging with homies. The crowd was a good mix of Livers and regular Marines fans, so it was fun seeing people excited for very different reasons
Dear Korea, thank you for being the absolute best crowd I've ever had the pleasure of participating in a live with. I cannot overstate how much this made the experience.
Shuka and Rikyako think it would be fun if other people took on Dia's role the next time they perform the song. Arisha thinks having all 9 of them up there would be excessive, but randomly swapping in someone else would be a fun surprise.
What warmed my heart the most about the Love Live Fes announcement is seeing all the folks who had moved on express interest in seeing μ's again (or for the first time). The love never really did go away.
#lovelive
#ラブライブ9周年
Arisha guested again this week on Uraraji and one letter asked why she got emotional during the final MC of 5th live. Her answer was pretty long, and there's some nuance that probably went over my head, but here are the key points.
Furirin gave her family copies of her photo book and her little brother tried to act like he didn't care but was actually the one who spent the most time looking through it.
#TSONE
#降幡ラブ #いとしき
"Not as a replacement for μ's, not out of brand loyalty, or out of random curiosity, but because you believe in us?"
And in that moment, the audience with unmistakable enthusiasm responded:
"Yes!"
The best word I can use to describe the whole
#LOSTWORLD_DAY2
experience is this: reassuring. The announcements and songs showed that the franchise has successfully course corrected after everything about 2020 threw a huge wrench in everything.
I love how many other artists from all other labels got to go to Love Live Fest as kankeisha this weekend. Shows just how much of an impact μ's had on their peers
Her appearance was officially decided during 6th Nagoya. The staff pulled her aside and asked if she was okay doing her solo on day 1 instead of day 2 as originally planned so she could be in it. Because of how they do the solos it was likely Furirin's idea.
On Uraraji, Furirin talked about how she saw "Furirin kiss" on Twitter after CYR's live because of the moment with her and Shuka during Yume Yume. She vehemently denies kissing Shuka, but now Kyan wants to know what she has to do to earn a Furirin kiss.
Emorin's really good at giving fanservice to the Natsumi oshis in the crowd. Like she noticed a girl near me who had her hair done up the same way and gave her a point while pulling on her own hair and that girl just started melting.
#Liella_4th_
千葉Day2
Arisha thought her mic was going to be off during the song. She didn't realize it until she was banging on the cymbals and she heard them through her ear monitors. Also when watching the stream archive, she realized the mic was picking up her breathing as she was switching props
Kyan remembered seeing the snow halation orange on the ceiling of SSA followed by the ocean of blue lights for Water Blue New World and thought how it embodied the two symbols of Aqours, the sun and the sea
I took
@daa10shi
to
@TorukoRiceAKIBA
to get the Furirin special. Owner immediately could tell we were Livers and asked us if we went to the CYaRon live. As a special service he served my soup in the cup Furirin used. I almost didn't want to touch it.
I took a trip to Toyosato to visit the K-ON school! Quite out of the way, but absolutely worth it. I'm happy to see the love for this series is still alive and well.
What I find fascinating about Nijigasaki is how it uses connections to previous events to make the anime more exciting rather than using the anime to make the events more exciting like μ's and Aqours did
#虹ヶ咲
When they were rehearsing the song, they didn't have all the props ready yet. They didn't see the zebra in person until the day of the performance. For the timpani part, to Shuka it just looked like Furirin was shaking her fists at her head.
While they're still kinda fresh, some #異次元フェス thoughts:
-Anchan has an unrivaled way of getting the crowd wound up
-Hearing Shine for the first time in god knows how long took me back to a very specific time.
-Crowd seemed pretty into Hasu. Dododo in the anikura rotation?
Apparently Arisha waited around in costume after day 1 of BanNam to take a photo with Liella instead of taking the bus away with the other performers #ラブライブANN