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Love Live!'s μ's Is Japan's 8th Best-Selling Musical Act of 2015

The Love Live! School idol project franchise's μ's idol group ranked #8 among Oricon's best-selling artists of 2015. The group sold about 801,000 music CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs for over 3.15 billion yen (about US$26.03 million). This is the first time the group has reached the top 10 in the annual list of best-selling artists. In 2013, the group was ranked at #64, and was ranked at #13 in 2014.

Male idol group Arashi topped the ranking, selling 3.99 million discs and earning 14.328 billion yen (US$118.43 million) for the year. #2 was the female idol group AKB48 with 11.2908 billion yen (US$93.32 million). The ranking list covers sales from December 8, 2014 to December 13, 2015.

The μ's idol group's Go→Go! Love Live! 2015~Dream Sensation!~ Blu-ray Memorial BOX topped the overall Blu-ray weekly chart during the September 28-October 4 week, and is the highest ranking and highest selling Blu-ray Disc release in the franchise's history. The franchise also put three singles (containing songs from the film) on the Oricon singles ranking chart in July, with the μ's idol group becoming the first in-anime characters to release three weekly singles and have all reach the top 3, and are also the first in-anime character group to top the weekly album chart with since K-ON!'s Ho-kago Tea Time did so in 2010.

The group will perform at this year's Kōhaku Uta Gassen (Red and White Song Battle), the New Year's Eve singing contest that is Japan's most viewed music television program.

The voice actress' contracts will expire at the end of March, and μ's will perform its "μ's Final Love Live!" concert on March 31 and April 1 at Tokyo Dome. The group's "final single" will go on sale on March 2.

In 2010, the anime studio Sunrise, Lantis, and ASCII Media Works' Dengeki G's Magazine launched Love Live! as a self-described "ultimate user-participation project" that lets its fans vote on the future of the fictional idols. A series of music CDs and animated music videos then followed. The members of the project announced in 2012 that a full anime series had been green-lit for the following year. The second season of the anime was announced in June 2013.

Crunchyroll streamed both seasons as they aired in Japan. NIS America announced in April that it will release the first and second seasons of the anime with an English dub.

The Love Live! The School Idol Movie film opened in Japan on June 13, and in theaters outside Japan starting in August. The film has earned a total of 2.60 billion yen (about US$21.7 million) as of October 5. The film also screened in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, and Indonesia. The film earned US$115,840 on 28 theaters during its United States run in September.

The successor project, Love Live! Sunshine!!, was announced in February. The project's nine-girl idol group Aqours' first single, "Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai?" (Is Your Heart Sparkling?), debuted on October 7 at #3 on the Oricon weekly singles chart.

Source: The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web via Hachima Kikō