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AnimeLab Announces Summer Simulcast of Love Live! Sunshine!!

Madman Entertainment originally made the announcement during the Madman National Cosplay Championship round in Perth on Saturday the 26th of June at Supanova Pop Culture Expo. You can view the announcement on AnimeLab's blog.

There are currently no details on when AnimeLab's simulcast will start.

Love Live! Sunshine!!

Uranohoshi Girls' High School, a private school in the seaside neighborhood of Uchiura at Numazu city, Shizuoka prefecture. A small high school in a corner of Suruga Bay, it is home to nine teens, led by second-year student Chika Takami, driven by one seriously big dream: To become the next generation of bright, sparkling “school idols”! As long as we don't give up, any dream can come true… All we have to do now is keep pushing hard for fame and glory! Now their “School Idol Project” begins to make their dreams come true!

Following on from Love Live!, Love Live! Sunshine!! follows a group of girls in a similar situation to μ that decide to follow their lead and start school idol groul called "Aqours" (pronounced aqua).

You can view the trailer AnimeLab linked to below;

Kazuo Sakai (Mushi-Uta director, episode director for Love Live! School idol project, Gundam Build Fighters) is directing the series at Sunrise, and Jukki Hanada (all previous Love Live! School idol project anime) is handling the series composition. Yūhei Murota returned to design the characters, and Tatsuya Katou (Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club, Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma) is composing the music at Lantis.

The anime's main staff includes;

• Director: Kazuo Sakai
• Series Composition: Jukki Hanada
• Original concept: Sakurako Kimino
• Original work: Hajime Yatate
• Character Design: Yūhei Murota
• Design Works: Masaki Kawake
• Set Design: Takeshi Takahashi
• Background Director: Junichi Higashi
• Color Design: Sayoko Yokoyama
• CG Director: Gō Kurosaki
• Compositing Director: Daiki Sugiyama
• Editing: Daisuke Imai
• Sound Director: Yukio Nagasaki
• Music: Tatsuya Katou
• Music Production: Lantis
• Animation Production: Sunrise

You can view character art and descriptions here.

The series will premiere on Tokyo MX and other channels starting on July 2 at 10:30 p.m. The anime will also air on Sun TV, KBS Kyoto, BS11, TV Aichi, Shizuoka Broadcasting, TV Hokkaido, and TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting. The anime will stream online on Bandai Channel, LINE LIVE, and Niconico starting on July 2. Funimation will be streaming the series in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Love Live! Sunshine!! project was first announced in February 2015. The project's three key phrases are "Reader Participation," "Inspired by μ's," and "Seaside Town Setting." The group's name Aqours was chosen by fans by popular vote.

In 2010, the anime studio Sunrise, Lantis, and ASCII Media Works' Dengeki G Magazine launched Love Live! as a self-described "ultimate user-participation project" which 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 an full anime series has been green-lit for the following year. The second season of the anime was announced in June 2013.

Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan. NIS America has released the first and second seasons of the anime with an English dub.

The Love Live! The School Idol Movie film opened in Japan last June, and in theaters outside Japan starting last August. The film has earned a total of 2.86 billion yen (about US$25.1 million). The film played in select cities in the United States last September, and also screened in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, and Indonesia.

Love Live!'s first idols, μ's, sold their "final single" on March 2, and they held their "μ's Final Love Live!" concerts on March 31 and April 1. However, the group members denied that they are breaking up.

Madman Entertainment streamed Love Live! on AnimeLab and held screenings of Love Live! The School Idol Movie in theatres around Australia last year. Madman has since released the first season on home video and will release the movie to home video in August this year.