Tag Archives: koizumi hanayo

In Search of Hanayo: My “Love Live!” GiGo Collabo Cafe Experience

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On my recent trip to Japan, I did the expected thing and went to Akihabara. While there, I spotted a Love Live! collaboration cafe at the arcade GiGO Akihabara Building 3, and decided that I had to go. Not only was it Love Live!-related, but it was actually focused on the OG μ’s girls!

I followed the signs, which led me all the way to the top floor. Curiously, the setup is such that you can’t take escalators all the way. 

Upon entering, I found myself in a small room covered in Love Live! paraphernalia, including posters, gashapon machines, and display cases. As a video played with scenes from the anime, Love Live! Songs could also be heard at the same time, dividing my attention a bit. The actual cafe was hidden behind a door, making it impossible to actually see what it’s like without registering with the cashier there.

In addition to registering a time slot for the cafe, the cashier has another role: accepting payments for even more merch. The goods weren’t limited to the original girls but included all generations, though the only things that weren’t blindbox items were the acrylic stands featuring μ’s in pink outfits. I decided to play the odds a little bit, but as someone who much prefers a guaranteed thing, I also bought the acrylic stand for my all-time fave, Hanayo. Because I bought a couple things, I hit a threshold to also receive a free plastic mini poster with the other eight girls included.

There just so happened to be a time slot available shortly after I arrived, so I decided to put my name down. 

The actual cafe was brightly lit and covered in μ’s art on the walls and the tables. A couple of the voices, Uchida Aya (Minami) and Iida Riho (Rin), had autographed some of the displays. 

The only other collabo cafe/restaurant I’d attended had been for Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which is aesthetically and thematically quite far-removed from Love Live! However, one thing it had in common with the Love Live! cafe is that you could also get merch by ordering food and drinks. In this case, the items consisted of coasters selected at random (of course), with drinks and desserts netting patrons one coaster and main courses two. 

I already had meal plans for later, so I decided to go with just a single Hanayo-themed beverage, which was a soft drink consisting of apple juice and muscat grape jelly (Side note: I learned through this trip that muscat grape is ridiculously delicious). I did not win a Hanayo coaster, but rather one for “START:DASH!!,” which in the anime is the first song performed by Honoka, Umi, and Minami. 

In contrast to my conservative order, other patrons went quite hard. I saw one person end up with around five drinks, two main courses, and I recall at least one dessert (though my memory might be off). Other individuals were similar. However, as someone who never, ever whaled in gacha in mobile form, I was hesitant to do the IRL version any more than I already had. I understand the desire, though.

You can see everything I ended up with (plus a canvas badge of Yugiri Tsuzuri from Hasunora I purchased elsewhere). While nothing there is really mind blowing, I’m glad I got to have this experience, and I’m happy I got to share it today, on Hanayo’s birthday.

Anime Central 2023 Interview: Kubo Yurika and Ichinose Kana

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Kubo Yurika and Ichinose Kana were at Anime Central 2023 to promote the game A Light in the Dark. Kubo is best known for her role as Koizumi Hanayo in Love Live!, and Ichinose is currently voicing Suletta Mercury, the protagonist of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.

I also had the chance to ask Kubo a question specific to Love Live! during her fan panel, which I’ve included at the end of the main interview. 

You’re both here at ACen because of your role in the visual novel A Light in the Dark. What are your most memorable experiences being involved with this game?

Do you mean during the recording?

Yes.

Kubo: Personally, this was during a time when I had a lot to record, so my sessions went on for days. My character, Mysterious Girl, goes through a lot of difficulties, and I was going through a lot of difficulties in my real life as well. So that overlapped, and I really realized that my life can be so easily influenced during recording.

Ichinose: By the roles you play?

Kubo: Yes, yes! That’s it! There’s a part of me that can be hurt quite a bit.

Ichinose: Oh, wow.

Kubo: So my memorable experiences tend to be about the heaviness of the role I play.

Ichinose: For me, I like playing serious roles, and my role hit close to heart. My character starts off very reticent, but there was still a lot of emoting involved. I do like heavy roles—and it was still heavy—but I still enjoyed it.

-How have your experiences playing characters such as Hanayo from Love Live! and Ichigo from Darling in the Franxx influenced the way you play your characters in A Light in the Dark? 

Kubo: So for both of us, it probably wouldn’t just be the roles from the works you mentioned—they’re all opportunities for growth as actors.

Ichinose: These are genuine experiences that contributed to our breadth of expression.

How do you balance playing multiple characters at once and keeping track of them?

Kubo: As for keeping track of roles, I think all the characters we’ve played so far don’t necessarily influence who we play in the moment. We just get into the role and do it that way. 

Ichinose: And since all the roles are so heavy in A Light in the Dark, resetting the emotions and getting out of the characters tends to be a bit of a challenge. But at the same time, as we work professionally, we do get ingrained with an emotional switch, or an acting switch, where we switch between roles in a very natural way.

Kubo: Yes, you’re right!

How does recording for a visual novel compare with other types of voice work?

Ichinose: Compared to recording for other types of video games, in other games, it’s more typical to do small voices like “Yah!”

Kubo: And “Hah!”

Ichinose: Yeah, and “Hah!” But there is a much longer story in A Light in the Dark, and there is much more emotional continuity. Depending on the recording, we might be skipping chapters, so we have to keep track of the continuity of the story and also the emotions. 

Kubo: But there are also branching paths in the story where the user has to select which path to go, and we have to be aware of the pre-selection emotion as well as which path the user chose.

Ichinose: One dialogue path would end, and then we’d have to do a different dialogue path.

Kubo: The level of tension and excitement would have to change too. It’s one of the fun and interesting things about the project.

Ichinose: I would sometimes have to rewind the emotional state of the character and go back. 

Kubo: Right!

That general area is part of the difficulty.

What inspired you to become a voice actor, or get into the entertainment industry in general?

Kubo: I started as a model for teenage magazines, but even before then, I was always watching anime and reading manga. While modeling, I was starting to wonder if I was unfit for the job, whereas I could always enjoy anime and manga. So I always wanted to take on the challenge if I ever had the opportunity. I did tell my agency that’s what I wanted to do, but they told me off that it’s not such an easy thing. They didn’t outright oppose what I said, but they said it’s not easy. When I got the role for Love Live!, though, that was my foot in the door into a career as a voice actor.

Ichinose: When I was in grade school and kindergarten I always loved watching anime, and my life more or less involved watching anime. I did play with my friends, but if I were at home, I’d spend pretty much the whole day watching anime. As I watched anime and loved anime, my thoughts turned towards the casts in anime, towards the voice actors, and eventually I would think that I wanted to get involved in the world of these various animation stories. So when it came time to choose a future for myself, one day I went to an open campus at a voice acting school, where I got my determination to go into voice acting.

For my three years in high school, I worked part-time and saved so I would have the money to pay for my own tuition for voice acting school. I paid my way through, did my audition, and got a role. So I started from a love of anime, refined my voice, and tried it out. I have the person who encouraged me to go into voice acting back then, who told me I had a chance, to thank.

Is there anything about your performances as Mysterious Girl and Young Girl that you’re especially proud of? 

Ichinose: What do you mean by that?

In the sense of, did you think you felt you had performed well, and can look back and say “I did a really good job here?”

Kubo: For my role as Mysterious GIrl, there is a portion in the latter half of the game where she goes through an emotional explosion. I played that part thinking, “I could lose my voice tomorrow, but I’ll go through with it.” If you can experience that scene, I would be very happy.

Ichinose: My character gets a little bit closer to the main character in the middle of the story, and she begins to open up and start talking about her dreams and aspirations—like how she would like to eat sweets. Normally, that’s the kind of dream that’s easily realizable if you have the money for it, but the girls grew up in an environment where that’s not something they could afford.

How is it to play a character who didn’t have something that was so ordinary and common for normal people? That was my challenge. So this is a serious title, but there are these small slivers of hope that my character can aspire towards, and if that kind of nuance gets through to the player, I think my acting will be rewarded.

Thank you!

Bonus: Extra Question for Kubo Yurika from the Previous Day’s Fan Panel

I love the way that you portray Hanayo’s shyness and intensity. My question is: I noticed your performance of her evolved over time; what changes did you make to playing Hanayo over the years?

Kubo: It wasn’t like I really changed my approach to Hanayo—more like as the years went by, Hanayo saw more of her character, experienced more, as did I personally. I think that’s kind of what led to that natural evolution. I wasn’t very conscious of it at all.

A Dream Realized on Hanayo’s Birthday, or “Oops, All Hanayo”

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It was almost 10 years ago when I discovered Love Live! and by extension the School Idol Festival mobile game. Koizumi Hanayo quickly became my favorite character, and so I set out with a simple goal: Make dedicated all-Hanayo teams while also avoiding whaling. It was both a way to show my fandom and to set a fairly concrete goal that I could dedicate my gacha pulls to. 

In 2015, I achieved the first step in a long road: a Hanayo Team consisting of all unique versions. Now, in 2023, I have crossed what I consider to be my final finish line: Three all-Hanayo teams with every member an idolized and legit Ultra-Rare (as opposed to free-giveaway URs that have less power as a result).

I have, in my own way, “beaten” Love Live! School Idol Festival, and can finally lay this game to rest—at least until the recently announced Love Live! School Idol Festival 2 shows up. Will I even play the sequel? And if I do, will I maybe dedicate myself to a different character, like Love Live! Superstar!!’s Wakana Shiki? Whatever the case, it’s the end of an era.

Happy Birthday, Hanayo. It’s been fun to cheer for such an intensely passionate character of contrasts, and it’ll continue to be amazing. 

Love Live + Yellow Magic Orchestra?!

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One of my favorite Love Live! songs is “Suki desu ga Suki desu ka?.” It’s a tune by Hanayo and Kotori with a kind of funk/disco flair. What I might have discovered recently, however, is a more specific reference to 70s music. Namely, the song might be taking cues or paying homage to the electronic music and techno pioneers known as Yellow Magic Orchestra.

At about 1 minute 13 seconds into “Suki desu ga Suki desu ka,” there’s a particular melody during the following lyrics:

Soshite watashi dake o (Oh yeah, oh yeah!)
Mitsumete hoshii no (watashi dake mitsumete)

If you listen to Yellow Magic Orchestra’s hit song Technopolis, there’s a similar combination of notes early on in the song, at about 42 seconds in. Have a listen below:

What do you think? Mere coincidence or an intentional nod to the masters of electronic music?

Christmas Feast!

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[Apartment 507] Passionate Whispers: Hanayo Koizumi is the Best Love Live! Character

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kinghanayo

To end off my Love Live! Character Spotlight series, I’ve written an article about my favorite school idol, Koizumi Hanayo.

May the rice be with you.

Fan vs. Official: Bokura no Love Live 12 + Love Live! School Idol Festival Thanksgiving 2016

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madmaki-small

In my most recent trip to Japan, I attended two different Love Live! events in one day. The first was “Bokura no Love Live! 12,” a doujin event. The second was “Love Live! Sukufesu Kanshasai 2016″ (School Idol Festival Thanksgiving 2016) in Ikebukuro, an official event held in celebration of the School Idol Festival game. The contrast between an event that revels in fan expression and one that presents everything in an official capacity is interesting to me, because I think it shows both the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to fandom.

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Though I had the opportunity to take a look at both, a question occurred to me as I was traveling from one to the other: if I could only go to one, which one would I choose? I took this from the perspective of a Koizumi Hanayo fan. At the doujin event, I could buy Hanayo-dedicated fan comics from people I knew were fans of Hanayo as much as I am (if not more!). I found a bunch of amazing comics and parody works, and I even got a couple of amazing tote bags that might be my favorite purchases of my entire Japan trip. There’s sort of an interesting magic to buying things in person that get lose with just ordering online, and it’s enhanced when you know the person behind the table put their heart and soul into it. Overall, it was one of the best highlights of my trip to Japan.

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However, doujinshi are, of course, not official portrayals of the characters. This is in many ways the advantage of fanart, fanfiction, etc., but what’s also clear is that the fan material feeds off of the official presentation. Much for the art at “Bokura no Love Live! 12” was clearly inspired by the images found in magazines, the mobile game, and everywhere else. There is a kind of power to official merchandise because it presents the characters at their best, but it’s also limiting because they can’t stray too far off from what is deemed “okay.”

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For example, the shirts being sold at “Thanksgiving 2016” were all prints of existing art that could be found in lots of places, while the merchandise sold at “Bokura no Love Live! 12” felt a little more unique because they weren’t officially sanctioned images slapped onto clothing. That’s not to say official Love Live! merchandise has to look blunt and straightforward (I actually also got a swank Love Live! polo shirt just the day before these events), but they seem to lean in that direction.

Another instance of the difference between events has to do with yuri and pairings. Love Live! encourages yuri to a certain degree, but has to keep it implicit because it’s supposed to appeal to all sorts of people (and indeed I saw everything from little girls to businessmen at Thanksgiving 2016). A doujin event, on the other hand, can go as explicit as possible in more ways than one, and can even merge the innocent with the racy and have them all exist in one place. Characters can be drawn to fit the whims of the artists to a greater degree with the doujinshi, but they necessarily must feed off the source material at least to a certain extent. Nico/Maki doujinshi can go the distance, but the dynamic between them is rendered through the anime, the game, and other canon resources.

Official events also have resources on their side. One of the highlights of “Sukufesu Kanshasai 2016” was a live School Idol Festival game where nine different people played simultaneously, each one commanding one of the buttons by stepping on them. The cards being used where all nine of the μ’s girls, but with special outfits for the event, and they were surrounded in a mall by throngs of fans dancing and singing along. A doujin event really couldn’t pull that off to the same capacity, nor could they be the place to get official Love Live! Final μ’s Concert shirts, which were a popular item at both events that granted legitimacy to the wearer’s fandom.

The division between official and unofficial events can be rather gray because of how the two feed into each other. The output of fans, albeit more often in the form of monetary purchases, informs the official companies responsible for Love Live! just what the fans are into. The fans, as mentioned, take inspiration from the official material, and convert it, thus spreading the joy of Love Live! further.

It’s hard to choose between the two when both have so much merit, but ultimately I think I would have gone for the doujin event just so I could have that experience of walking around and buying fan-made works. It’s sort of the difference between attending fan panels and official panels at conventions. The official panels are where you can meet the creators, but many times they’re curated and micromanaged heavily, whereas doujinshi and fan panels can stray from the “company line” so to speak. This makes them, in my opinion, overall more interesting, but I’m well aware that all of the Hanayo rice memes required the source material to emphasize it in the most amusing ways.

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The last thing I’d like to talk about is actually a little card found in the bag of freebies from Thanksgiving 2016 which is a drawing of some of the School Idol Festival-original girls. Unlike The iDOLM@STER, there is a clear stratification between the main girls (be they μ’s or their successors, the new group Aqours), who are considered “Rare Cards,” as opposed to the “Normal Card” girls that are basically fodder for the former. Here, even at this official event was a small token of appreciation for the lesser idols, and a part of me wishes that someone, be they official creators or doujinshi creators, would take the next step and flesh them out. The result would be different on either side, but both would provide value in their own ways.

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PS: I mentioned a freebie bag for “Love Live! Sukufesu Kanshasai 2016,” and I happen to have an extra one. I’ll be holding a contest soon to determine the winner, so stay tuned!

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“White Rice is Amazing! I Wonder How it Gets so White…”

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hanayorice-1000“Insert rice comment here”

Happy Birthday, Koizumi Hanayo!

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Today, January 17th is the birthday of Koizumi Hanayo, the rice-loving, school idol-adoring best character from Love Live! So, what better way to celebrate than with the Hanayo Nendoroid I recently acquired?

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See Hanayo.

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See Hanayo with rice.

Hanayo is one of the nine original Love Live! Nendoroids, based on their outfits from the first anime opening. In order to facilitate any fans’ desires to collect them all, they come with fewer accessories as well as a lower price tag to match. I did not buy the other members, but if they’re as good as Hanayo’s Nendoroid then I think they’re a worthy investment, especially if you have a favorite Love Live.

There’s an even better Hanayo Nendoroid that comes with a rice cooker and glasses, but it has yet to be released. I do wish I had it for this occasion, but maybe next year.

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Best Anime Characters of 2015

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BEST MALE CHARACTER

Sunakawa Makoto (My Love Story!!)

In the narrative of My Love Story!!, Sunakawa is naturally handsome, intelligent, and charismatic to the point that girls from ages 8 to 80 seem to fall in love with him at first sight. However, what makes him truly stand out aren’t his looks or his smarts, but his genuine bond with his best friend, the seemingly brutish Gouda Takeo. Sunakawa’s opposite in practically every way, but the two share one important thing in common: big hearts. Sunakawa sees not only the goodness in Takeo but the petty shallowness of those who judge people only by their looks, which affects him just as much as Takeo himself.

Takeo is also a worthy pick, but it’s the way Sunakawa looks out for Takeo that makes him the Best of 2015. Whether you want to be Sunakawa or have him watch your back, there’s no better best friend in all of anime (except maybe Tomoyo).

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

Koizumi Hanayo (Love Live! The School Idol Movie)

Last year, Koizumi Hanayo was in the final running for Best of 2014, but ultimately the immensely powerful personality of Kill la Kill‘s Kiryuuin Satsuki won out. Now, with Love Live! The School Idol Movie being the swansong for the original Love Live! girls, I thought it best to call Hanayo Best Female Character of 2015 because there might never be a chance to do it again.

If there’s one word I would use to describe Hanayo, it would be “passion.” It’s her nearly unrivaled love of school idols, along with some support from her friends, that allows Hanayo to take the step from fan to idol in the first place. The fiery look in Hanayo’s eyes and her characteristic “quiet scream” when something big is happening is unmistakable. When Hanayo helps Rin overcome her negative self-image, it’s from a place of genuine care and compassion. And when Hanayo goes on a rant about how rice is the central component of a proper meal and that this is one of America’s most critical flaws, why, it’s only appropriate. Hail to the Rice Goddess.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to determining my favorite characters in anime, I don’t think I’m alone in saying that they often possess either admirable qualities I would like to emulate, or traits that I can directly relate to. Sunakawa’s perceptiveness and compassion are things that my oblivious self would love to have. Hanayo’s devotion to food is a match for my own constant desire to find the latest, greatest things to eat, and her instant switch from shy to fervent fan also reminds me a lot of myself. Of course, these are not their only criteria, and ultimately it is their impact on their friends and loved ones that is in a way much more significant, but there’s something about both Sunakawa and Hanayo that makes them both like quiet fist pumps in anime form.

Yesssss.

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