Trivia / Love Live! Superstar!!

• Actor-Shared Background: Keke, a Chinese-Japanese girl who moved from Shanghai, China to Japan to become a school idol, is voiced by Liyuu, a Chinese singer/online personality from Shanghai who developed an interest in Japanese pop culture and moved to Japan to become an idol.
• Amateur Cast: Even moreso than previous Love Live! groups.
  • Out of 11 members, only Nako Misaki (Chisato) and Akane Yabushima (Mei) are professional voice actresses, however have only voiced minor characters prior to their castings. Wakana Ookuma, while also debuts as a voice actor, Shiki is among her first roles.
  • Sayuri Date (Kanon), Nagisa Aoyama (Ren), Nozomi Suzuhara (Kinako) and Sakura Sakakura (Tomari), were selected from open auditions and thus are industry newcomers at the time of their debuts.
  • Liyuu (Keke), Naomi Payton (Sumire), Aya Emori (Natsumi) and Yuina (Margarete), while have experiences in the entertainment industry in general (singer, idols and model respectively), have no professional training in voice acting prior to their castings.
• Breaking News Interruption: An example involving a news banner occurred during the original TV broadcasts of Season 1 Episode 2 and in Episode 5 and 9 of Season 2. A banner about a minor earthquake appeared shortly after the episode's eyecatch and lasted for a few minutes afterwards. This incident was so notable among members of the fandom that some news websites picked up on the story. It's also noteworthy because the earthquake warning also shows up on the NHK Plus version of the episode.
• The Cast Showoff: Nagisa Aoyama had thirteen years of ballet experience prior to joining the cast, and helped to create Ren's choreography for her ballet solo during "Matataki no Saki e" (as performed during Liella!'s first concert tour).
• Casting Gag:
  • Anna Mugiho, who voiced the alpacas in Love Live!, Shiitake in Love Live! Sunshine!! and Hanpen in Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, returns to voice friendly animals: Kanon's pet owl Manmaru, Ren's pet dog Chibi, and Kuromitsu who's outside Kinako's house.
  • Akina Homoto, the voice actress for Lanzhu Zhong, has signed onto the series as a staff member, working under the sound cooperation team. She was mainly brought in to assist communication between Liyuu and the audio staff during recording sessions.
  • A retroactive one after April 2023, for anyone who notices that Setsuna's new actress Coco Hayashi actually provided additional voices for the first half of Superstar!!'s first season.
• Defictionalization: Just like the previous anime, you can buy memorial items that are based on items seen in the show.
  • Season 1 Episode 1's item is a cushion◊ shaped like Keke's "Let's スクールアイドル!" sign that she holds during the episode when advertising her upcoming school idol club. It also comes with a clear file with Keke's handmade flyer design on it.
  • Season 1 Episode 4's item includes a case◊ shaped like the candle that Sumire straps to her head while attempting a "divine ritual" on Kanon.
  • Season 1 Episode 6's item contains a charm with a hair string◊ similar to the one Chisato ties on in the episode.
  • Season 1 Episode 7's item is a plush◊ of Ren's pet dog Chibi. It measures 5.9 in/15 cm tall.
  • Season 1 Episode 8's item is (plot spoilers) a key holder wallet◊ patterned after the wooden lockbox Kanon finds in storage.
  • Season 1 Episode 9's item is a reversible zipper pouch◊ with the designs of the two banners Keke unveils from the rooftop. One design reads "Liella!"; turn it inside out and it reads "LoveLive!".
  • Items revealed for the Liella! First LoveLive! Tour include the foam fingers◊ that Keke and Sumire briefly use in the Season 1 ending theme. Added later were color versions for the other three members.
  • A plush of Yuigaoka's white dinosaur mascot was made available to order in March 2022. At approx 7.08 in/18 cm, the real-life item is smaller than in episode 8 during the school festival preparations.
  • Season 2 Episode 1's item is a yellow zipper case patterned after Kinako's luggage.
  • Season 2 Episode 2's item is a pink towel◊ like the one Mei uses during gym/P.E. class.
  • Season 2 Episode 3's item is Natsumi's grey backpack◊ seen during her delivery job.
  • Season 2 Episode 4's item is meant to resemble the white binoculars◊ that Mei uses to spy on Liella! at practice.
  • Season 2 Episode 5's item is a black OniNattsu T-shirt◊ with designs seen on Natsumi's tablet. The front design is pink Natsumi with her hairdo pointing down, and the back uses the white Japanese text (instead of being a separate shirt).
  • Season 2 Episode 7's item is a white eye-mask◊ shaped like Ren's VR headset.
  • Season 2 Episode 8's item is a red mini paper lantern◊ based on the one at Chisato's takoyaki food truck. The purple star on white circle is from the red lanterns during the Insert Song. The lantern measures 3.54 in/9 cm tall and is 1.77 in/4.5 cm in diameter.
  • Season 2 Episode 10's item is a plush◊ shaped like the animal who's outside Kinako's boarding house; according to official sources e.g. the Twitter post on the item, it's Kinako's pet Kuromitsu.
• Development Gag:
  • Two of the group name candidates, "Xtreme" and "55'stars", show up in the background in the Hajimari wa Kimi no Sora PV.
  • Several other candidate names ("Yuine", "0sing", "Spica", "Oriesta", "Yunity", "kiraboshi") can be seen as store signs in the anime.
• Late Export for You:
  • Due to the series airing on the NHK E channel in a primetime slot, the show has a timed exclusivity deal with the channel. Local channels who broadcast previous Love Live! anime as they aired and live streaming services such as YouTube and LINE Live get the series 2 days later than NHK. For most Japanese fans, this is fine, since NHK E is a channel anyone with a TV receives. For international fans however, the embargo also applies to the worldwide release of the series. Meaning, subtitled versions of the episodes were not available on the day they air. Western fans were in for a rude awakening on the Sunday morning the anime first premiered; plans were changed by Funimation without warning to start releasing episodes 2 days after they air on NHK, just like its Japanese counterparts. This issue has been remedied however; within a few hours of the first episode airing, popular translation group Team ONIBE released a subtitled file of the first episode onto pirate sites, and have done so for later episodes within a timely fashion as well. They've stated that as long as this issue persists (and enough members are around to work on them), they will continue to create fansubs for the series. The 2-day delay also carried over to Season 2.
  • The version of the "Hajimari wa Kimi no Sora" single with "Watashi no Symphony" as a B-side never saw a digital release until a year after the single was released.
• No Export for You: The "Liella no Uta" segment is only aired on the NHK E channel and in Japanese BD release, and not available for any overseas streaming services. Despite this, the album compiling the songs from the segments is available internationally on services like Spotify and Apple Music.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content:
  • Fans got to vote on which songs would be used as part of the voice actress audition process.
  • The group's name (Liella!) was decided by fans.
  • Details about the school such as the name, the vending machine drinks, the bread served in the cafeteria, the mascot, etc., were decided by online polls.
  • Notably averted by the subunit compositions, which were previously voted upon by fans for prior units. Instead, the subunits were already decided upon, meaning fans only got to vote for their names as with previous subunits.
• Promoted Fangirl: Almost every main cast member is a huge fan of previous series in some capacity.
  • Sayuri Date, Kanon's voice actress, has stated that she's been a fan of Love Live! since she was a child.
  • Liyuu, who is a professional cosplayer, has cosplayed as several of the franchise's characters, including Riko, You, Kanan, Nozomi, and Yoshiko. She describes herself as a diehard fan of the series, having the chance to go to a μ's mini concert/fan meet and greet in her hometown of Shanghai and also attending μ's Final Live shortly after. When she got the opportunity to meet Riho Iida (Rin Hoshizora's voice actress) face to face, she broke down in tears.
  • Nagisa Aoyama (Ren) is a long time fan of the franchise. Her favorite members are Nico and Ruby, and she got the chance to live out her fangirl dreams by doing the Nico Nico Nii and Ganbaruby with Sora Tokui and Ai Furihata (Nico and Ruby's voice actresses respectively).
  • Naomi Payton (Sumire) is a big fan of NijiGaku and her favorite is Kasumi.
  • Misaki Nako (Chisato) was introduced to Love Live by her older sister and has stated she's been enchanted by Umi's VA, Mimori Suzuko, ever since she saw her for the first time.
  • Nozomi Suzuhara (Kinako), Akane Yabushima (Mei), Wakana Ookuma (Shiki) and Aya Emori (Natsumi) are all long time fans since the μ's era.
  • The voice actresses of Sunny Passion, Chihaya Yoshitake (Yuuna) and Yuna Yuuki (Mao), are also fans of the franchise. Chihachan has been going to Aqours concerts and has confirmed that she went to both Tokyo Dome concerts. Yunana has confirmed going to Love Live Fest and to Aqours 6th Love Live ~Windy Stage~.
  • Sakura Sakakura (Tomari) may be the first to not only be a fan of the franchise as a whole, but a confirmed fan of the very same group she eventually joins, prior to considering joining them. She's mentioned that she attended Liella!'s first live tour as a regular audience member, and she has a little shrine full of Kotori and Keke merchandise at home.
• Release Date Change:
  • Season 1 Episode 3 was pushed back for two weeks due to the aforementioned primetime slot conflicting with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
  • Season 1 Episode 6 was also pushed back for a week for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
  • Season 2 Episode 8 was pushed back for one week due to production staff getting affected by Covid.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Keke's original birthday on July 7 as seen from early promotions was changed to July 17 afterwards. Many fans speculate that the change was done to avoid unintended implications since July 7 was the date of a certain Marco Polo Bridge Incident, an event that many historians believe to be the catalyst of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
  • Similar to Keke's situation, Natsumi's original birthday on August 13 was also changed to August 7 as August 13 is The Battle of Shanghai, the first major engagement of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and is regarded as the start of World War II.
  • The café that Kanon's family runs is based on Café Casa, a small coffee shop in a residential sector in Shibuya, Tokyo. However, a month prior to the anime's airing, the exterior design of the café in the anime ended up getting changed as the owner had unofficially consented to the use of the cafe's image over the phone a year earlier but was not contacted by Sunrise staff as promised, only discovering that the cafe's design had been used when footage came out just before the anime's premiere. This wound up upsetting the owner and they contacted Sunrise, upon which both parties agreed to alter the café's design in the anime to its current style.
  • Kanon's earlier illustrations had her wear Proper Tights with a Skirt before the latter illustrations and the anime adaptation changed them to regular socks.

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