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Hero TV to Air Love Live! Sunshine!!, 2nd Initial D Remake Film This Month

Philippine television channel HERO TV announced on Tuesday that it will premiere the Love Live! Sunshine!! anime and the New Theatrical Movie Initial D Legend 2: Racer (Shin Gekijō-ban Initial D Legend 2 -Tōsō-) anime film on the channel this November. HERO TV previously announced both anime as part of its 2017 slate.

Love Live! Sunshine!! is a spinoff of the Love Live! franchise. The anime features a different setting and a different nine-girl idol group named Aqours, which is the name of both the in-story idol group, and the real-life idol unit composed of the voice actresses for the characters.

The anime's story moves the setting from Tokyo's Akihabara area to the coastal town of Numazu in Shizuoka prefecture. Here, Chika Takami, who idolizes μ's, decides to form her own school idol group to enter the Love Live! school idol contest in order to prevent her high school from shutting down and merging with another school.

The first Love Live! Sunshine!! anime premiered in July 2016. The anime's second season premiered in Japan on October 7.

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." Fans chose the group's name Aqours 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" that lets its fans vote on the future of the fictional idols. The project inspired the first television anime season in 2013, and a second season followed in 2014. The Love Live! The School Idol Movie anime film then premiered in June 2015.

HERO TV premiered the first Love Live! anime in February 2014, and the second season in May 2015. The channel has been airing reruns of the two series constantly since their premiere dates. The channel aired the film in January.

New Theatrical Movie Initial D Legend 2: Racer is the second in a film trilogy that retells the beginning of the story from Shuuichi Shigeno's original car-racing manga. High school student Takumi Fujiwara works as a gas station attendant during the day and a delivery boy for his father's tofu shop during late nights. Little does he know that his precise driving skills and his father's modified Toyota Sprinter AE86 Trueno make him the best amateur road racer on Mt. Akina's highway. Because of this, racing groups from all over the Gunma Prefecture issue challenges to Takumi to see if he really has what it takes to be a road legend.

The first film in the trilogy opened in Japan in August 2014, the second film opened in May 2015, and the third film opened in February 2016.

SANZIGEN Animation Studio and LIDEN FILMS animated the films with Masamitsu Hidaka as chief director, Tomohito Naka as director, Mayori Sekijima as scriptwriter, Koji Haneda as character designer, and Akio Dobashi as composer. The cast included Mamoru Miyano as Takumi Fujiwara, Daisuke Ono as Ryōsuke Takahashi, Yūichi Nakamura as Keisuke Takahashi, Maaya Uchida as Natsuki Mogi, Minoru Shiraishi as Itsuki Takeuchi, Junichi Suwabe as Takeshi Nakazato, and Hiroaki Hirata as Bunta Fujiwara.

HERO TV previously aired the first film in the trilogy on October 29.

HERO TV previously aired the Initial D TV anime, and it also aired the Initial D: Extra Stage OVA episodes in 2011. The channel aired the Initial D: Third Stage anime film in September 2015, and premiered the Initial D: Fifth Stage anime series in December 2015. HERO TV aired Initial D: Final Stage last November.