Forum - View topicThe Secret of Love Live's Success
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limmaestro
 Posts: 26 |
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There is only one explanation to Love Live's success, and it is an existential one:
Although Love Live is a music franchise, they're selling more than just songs. The characters are dreaming, growing, singing, and shining together. Each of them has a story, and their stories combine into bigger stories of becoming the best that they can be - "stories achieved together," quoting Mu's. This is essentially what all human beings long for in life. The songs represent the stories of growth and possibilities - "stories represent possibilities," quoting Wake Up, Girls!. Love Live is providing this to the disillusioned people of the modern world. People can indirectly live the characters' dreams by becoming a fan, and buying singles and merchandises, all of which are mere placeholders for the said dreams. In short, songs & anime = stories = possibilities = growth = existential essence, where the equal signs stand for "represents." |
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bleuster
 Posts: 455 Location: Orange County |
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When I read "Love Live has a passionate, devoted audience..." my mind did a quick scan to all of those Love Live articles of fans featured on RocketNews24.
Not being a fan, that's about all I could take away from the series. |
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Parsifal24
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Interesting that Nick picked episode eight of season two as representative of a good character vignette from the first series as episode five get singled out still a good choice as episode eight is the episode that made Nozomi my favorite girl in μ's. While Sunshine has been the part of the franchise that meant the most to me probably because I got in on the "ground floor."
Also yes it really is for everybody and that's what makes it great I'm a 30-year-old guy and I can enjoy this with my Mom who is almost sixty my sister who is 17 and overall just the ethos of the fandom is great. From Twitter feeds that RT screencaps of favorite girls entire Wikis dedicated to Love Live that set up fan books for The Seiyuu the community aspect is great and part of what keeps me coming back. |
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Edl01
Posts: 117 |
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As has been mentioned above and I'll repeat, the success of Love Live really is that it's a show for almost everyone. It has to have one of the most diverse fanbases I have ever been a part of. People who dislike the series often wrongly associate it as something aimed purely at Otaku, however just interacting with a few members of the community will immediately show that it's not the case.
I first watched Love Live after the second season broke almost every single record that it's possible for an anime to break and I had no clue how something like this could trounce Madoka and Monogatari. But after watching it myself the reasons for the shows popularity were obvious. It's not one of my favorite shows, but when it comes to just having something to make me happy very few shows are as good as that as Love Live...When it's not trying to be a terrible drama of course.(Still not over the season 1 ending). |
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WingKing
Posts: 617 |
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One of the things that makes Love Live unique is that it was intended to be a project that got fans involved right from the start. Fans (or at least Dengeki G's readers) have had the chance to vote over the years on things like the the group names and subunit names, which girls are centers for the singles, their hairstyle and costume choices, and other stuff. So that feeling of it being a show that belongs to and is shaped by its fans is something that the franchise has consciously cultivated ever since the project began in 2010, and I'm sure that spirit of participation was something that they felt was important to carry over as much as they could to the TV series.
And I think Nick is absolutely right to compare the series to musical theater. My Mom is a huge fan of movie musicals from the 40s and 50s, so I grew up on a steady diet of those things whether I wanted to see them or not, and Love Live reminds me in a lot of ways of some of the campier movies that I remember watching. My Mom doesn't watch anime except for what we watch together, but I'm positive she'll enjoy Love Live if I ever have a chance to show it to her. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I mean, other than the fact that the entire show is based around idealizing and dehumanizing High School girls into simple Otaku archetypes and fetishes, sure. Yes, I'm aware that that is very extreme, and does not reflect my own feelings, but this is an almost verbatim quote from an acquaintance of mine after seeing some of the first season. I don't think this series is for quite that broad of an audience, personally, and would never show it to someone who is not already into the moe side of anime. I do think there is something to complaints like that, even while they are very over the top. Shows like this aren't entirely innocent. Personally, I think that's okay, I don't think entertainment needs to be innocent. And I don't want it to be(I like excessive gore and exploitative fanservice sometimes). But I think it's important to acknowledge some of the less than wonderful aspects of it. |
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tentensan
Posts: 102 |
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I feel like you made some good points here. Love Live! is a show with a very diverse fanbase. I think what makes it work so well is that the fanbasr can get involved in what the idols names will be, who the center will be, etc.
However, with every show, there are mistakes. Love Live Sunshine! at first, was an exact copy of Love Live and I was starting to get furious. I wanted them to be in their own spotlight and eventually, they dd just that. I'm so glad people love them and u's. Hopefully, the next Love Live group (Hoping for another one), they revise their mistakes and make sure to make them shine in their own spotlight. Love Live is a great franchise, and I only hope for it's success like every other franchise. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Love Live is just another cute girls doing cute things show. If it didn't have that god-awful CGI I'm sure I'd love it. I think the thing is, a lot of the English anime fanbase seems to avoid cute girls doing cute things shows for some reason or another. Love Live is K-ON but with a much more unbelievable plot and more focus on the central activity.
It's just cute girls doing cute things. It's a 'secret' formula that has worked time and time again will continue to do so long after this idol anime boom is over. |
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FtKaru
Posts: 70 |
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Here comes a novel
I know this is something your acquaintance said, but how are the characters in love live dehumanized? I won't pretend they're particularly complex, but the series has always delved into the characters' own personal issues and struggles rather than just having them remain as happy-go-lucky idealized idols the whole show. It's also dismissive to wave them away as simple archetypes when often times the characters run contrary to what people try to define them as, especially as the show goes on. The show isn't entirely innocent in what it does (Sunrise knows what their audience wants) and I don't think any show is, but I feel like your acquaintance's approach to it is incredibly cynical, especially since they're making these generalizations from only seeing some of the first season. As for the audience, it's a lot more diverse than most people realize. Often times people think it's just the standard male otaku fare and it is to an extent, but a large portion of the LL fanbase is actually female. That surprised me because I always thought it would fall in line with a lot of other idol shows in that regard.
While it probably could have been executed better, I think that was the entire point; at some point Aqours would have to realize that even though they aspired to be like u's, they simply weren't them and that their own journey would be different. That being said there were unnecessary parallels between the two such as the school closing down. Maybe it was just to drive home that "We're gonna be just like u's!" aspect from the characters, especially with Chika's response to it, but I think it just left a lot of bad taste in people's mouths. It really seems like Sunrise was trying to tap into that aspect with the show, but it's a thin line to tread between subtlety and outright copy/paste when you try and give more purpose to those callbacks to the original show. I think it worked out well for them so far since it could have easily been the downfall of Sunshine. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4570 |
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Nick's selling the show aside, all I can keep thinking while looking at these screencaps and the overall premise is, "Man, this show could not be any less for me if it walked up to me and actively slapped me across the face." But I'm the type who seems to have a fundamental disconnect over how any variation of cute-girls-doing-cute-things represents worthwhile entertainment. I mean, if that's your thing, more power to you, but just keep it as far away from me as you can.
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jymmy
 Posts: 1244 |
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That's fair enough, but what would define "worthwhile entertainment", then? For me, it would simply be any work succeeding at its genre and being overall well-written/produced/directed, etc. About the least "worthwhile" subject for a work I can imagine is characters taking drugs recreationally, but there are a couple of stoner movies I've quite liked because they excelled in direction, storytelling, comedy and the overall quality of their production.Love Live! is a bit like that: really entertaining, cleverly written and really funny. It could be about anything so long as it were good, which I think it is.
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I think we both already got to the point of what they were most likely trying to say, which is just that they represent archetypes, and aren't particularly complex. Apparently, that by itself, is "dehumanizing". I honestly sort of walked away from the conversation after that, but I did wonder about their thought process, and I think I can see what they were talking about. I certainly don't agree with it, just like I don't agree with a lot of other nitpicky critiques that come across as cynical, or born from the idea that everything in entertainment has to be morally and ethically pure. But anyway, that's a tangent. What I was trying to express in my comment is that the show isn't quite as built for a broad audience( broad western audience, at least) as many of its fans think. And that it might not be quite as pure and family friendly as some fans want to think.
I think Jacob was pretty on the money with his explanation of that on ANNCast a month or so ago. The lack of a male lead, and the fact that the show is almost a magical girl show, but without the magic and the unrealistic enemies/battles, making it seem much more feasible and down-to-earth, might be part of what is driving its popularity with women. I feel like it would be easy for a young woman to relate to a band of other strong, motivated, inspirational young women. Also the fact that there is no production staff, or committee running them, giving them an extra level of freedom. I was surprised by its popularity with women at first too, but in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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I always found the franchise to be lacking, and I've been a semi-fan since the first promo videos before the first season even was a thing to be.
To me the show always seems to be stopping just short of being satisfying. You'll have these moments of drama, but they'll pull back before there's any consequence. They'll have jokes among the characters, but take the easy way out for a cheap laugh. I laughed so little I wouldn't even consider comedy to be a trait of the show. The music sections would be perfectly choreographed and frankly stand out in a disjointed manner from the rest of the show, much like an old 'music video' segment of "Jem and the Holograms," rather than something more accurate like Locodol. I tend to enjoy Idol shows. And I can fully enjoy a silly concept of cute girls doing things. But the show keeps pulling back on its selling points, and then trying to up sell things I didn't come to an idol show for. I don't hate the show, but I do think it got 'lucky' to take off this far. Will people still be arguing Best LL Girl from the first group, a couple years from now? I would say no. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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I have never once turned on my computer or TV and encountered an unwanted episode of Love Live, which is too bad. This show seems like it really is my thing, but streaming does not work for me and the NIS Blu-rays are too expensive. I am going to watch to see if there is a cheaper release in the future, or maybe a really good sale. I do appreciate having articles, and threads, such as this to help me decide how much I might be willing to spend. |
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SkerllyF
Posts: 244 |
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Like High school Musical Films, Love Live is all about overcoming teenage problems by singing. LOTS AND LOTS OF SINGING. They never take themselves too seriously.
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