[AJ2019] Love Live! School Idol Festival Series Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Special Talk Stage Event Report

AnimeJapan2019 featured many great series on its four big stages but there were also many stages attached to booths of different companies. One of them was for KLabGames, where a Love Live! School Idol Festival stage took place. The guests on stage were Aguri Onishi, Kaori Maeda, and Miyu Kubota, the voices of Ayumu Uehara, Shizuku Osaka, and Karin Asaka, respectively.

The stage started with introductions and the three of them greeted all the fans that came to the venue. They also introduced their characters, which I am sure most of you already know. During their introduction, they hid behind a picture of their character and welcomed the fans once again in the voice of their character. Maeda’s character seems like a sweet girl that knows where she wants to be in life and has a kind soul but is also very determined. Onishi’s character Ayumu is a pure girl, who probably can make friends easily and knows how to motivate those around her. Kubota’s character Karin is definitely a sexy girl, evident in the picture of the character and in her voice, which turned very smokey as soon as the actor hid behind the picture. A perfect illusion for the fans to keep up the dream of the 2D idol but at the same time hear the real voice actress perform live.

During the event they promoted their Love Live! album Tokimeki Runners which was released in November 2018. The song is the first group song of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, which their characters are a part of, so it was a special song for them. Each of the girls had a solo song on the album which the audience got to hear for a bit, too. The songs differ greatly from each other, and the guests explained how surprised they were about the diversity of the songs that are possible at Nijigasaki High School, since some of the songs have such a unique sound.

At one point, the three guests talked about what they want for their characters. Maeda wanted Shizuku to become number one in the monthly ranking for her birthday. Onishi revealed she hopes the characters of Nijigasaki will get their own solo event, where they can perform all their songs live. Last but not least, Kubota said she wishes for the most important thing: that everybody in the world will start to like Nijigasaki! And that they sell well! After Kubota showed that she had two wishes written down, Maeda revealed she also had another wish: She wants to go on a school trip with everyone. She explained that by ‘everyone,’ she also meant girls from other schools such as Aqours.

The end of the event was the most amusing, as they played a Super Score Match together with fans! It was possible for 99 others to join and the game would start automatically after the private room was full, so everybody got their phones ready, hoping for a chance to play with the voice actresses. Even people who don’t play the game could feel the excitement in the room as they started up the game. Their goal was a certain score which would bring everybody special prizes of items that could be used in-game. First up was Maeda, but even though the plan was to do Shizuku’s solo song, for some reason another song started playing. They went with it anyway and she managed to score the needed 120,000 points to clear the stage! After each round, there is the possibility to send stickers into the room while the individual scores pop up and the people in the room get ranked, and things really got crazy there as everybody sent in stickers. As you can see the ranking of everybody in the game, they asked if the first few ranks were attending the event and the second place ranker was there, so the girls waved at them. Kubota was up next, who also didn’t get her character’s solo song chosen, but she also managed to reach the goal. Lastly it was Onishi’s turn, who kindly asked everybody who would try to join the private room to choose her character’s solo song and even though I am not sure if it was thanks to the fans or just luck, she did indeed get to play the song. This was the most exciting part of the event, because we could take a look at the girls playing and everyone at the venue was so excited to play together with them, waiting to see how high they ranked and if the guests would manage to reach the 120,000 points goal.

Photo from Love Live! School Idol Festival Series Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Special Talk Stage Event

The event ended with some parting words from the guests, who thanked everybody for coming. Maeda said that she hoped there would be many more events like this so that she has the chance to meet fans, as this was only her second time to be guesting on an event like this and that she looks forward to seeing everybody on their upcoming live. Onishi said that she was sure there were many people who attended a Nijigasaki event for the first time, but that it wasn’t too late to join the fun yet and that she would be happy if many new people joined the fandom, since there are so many different characters to like and she is sure there will be someone for everybody! She also hopes to be able to do more events in the future and thanks everybody once again for making it possible for her to play her character’s song. Lastly Kubota thanked everybody at the venue as well as everybody watching the stream at home. She also expressed her hope to gain many new fans, personally as well as for Nijigasaki, even though she is sure there are people who already knew her from before.

At the end, they took the time to walk around and wave at the fans and get closer to them before they left the stage and the event ended with a warm atmosphere and loud applause by the fans.

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