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Aniplus Asia Adds Love Live! to VOD Service

Aniplus-Asia announced on Wednesday that it has added the Love Live! School idol project anime to its video-on-demand service.

Love Live! centers on Kousaka Honoka, a high school sophomore student. Shocked and dismayed by the imminent closure of her school, Honoka entices her two friends Umi and Kotori to form a school idol unit with her in an effort to increase the school's popularity. In the world of Love Live!, many schools have school idol groups that perform as amateur pop singers and dancers, and the Love Live! competition for them often bring fame to the participants. Honoka's road is filled with hardships from both inside and outside her school, but as her group of three slowly grows to nine, she will find what it takes to shine.

The anime premiered in 2013, and had a second season in 2014. It also received an anime film in 2015 that opened in various Southeast Asian territories in September to October of that year. The franchise spawned a sequel titled Love Live! Sunshine!!, which premiered in 2016, and will get a second season in October.

The franchise began as a collaboration between Kadokawa's Dengeki G's Magazine, Sunrise, and Lantis in 2010, with the theme of "The story that everyone made true." The companies billed the project as the "ultimate user-participation project." The companies ran polls to determine the future of key aspects of the project, including the group names, story elements, and even lyrics, a process which it repeated for Love Live! Sunshine!!. The franchise has since become one of the most popular franchises in Japan, with the real-life counterpart voice actresses for the characters releasing numerous hit singles and albums under their in-story group name μ's, who also performed at the annual Kōhaku Uta Gassen New Year's program, the widest viewed music program in Japan. The Love Live! The School Idol Movie anime film was the #8 highest-grossing domestic Japanese film of 2015.