Love Live Bluebird: The Final Day
May. 11th, 2025 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gildedstageI didn’t expect to have this much fun getting hyped for a new project, so I thought it could be fun to have a last minute reflection before the floodgates open (either 15 minutes from starting this post or 12 hours from now). For quick context, Love Live Blue Bird is the next entry in the Love Live, a multimedia franchise centered around school idols, and it will start on May 12th, 2025.
I haven’t been invested in Love Live for about 4-5 years now, so when they announced the new project back in February, I thought of it as my chance to potentially get back in. I was worried I missed it until they posted the first teasers in April, which gave us two silhouettes for each of the 10 girls (one in casual wear and the other in what appears to be their group costume).
There were a lot of theories based on the new teasers, ranging from there actually only being 5 girls with 5 virtual avatars (thankfully disproven with the second teaser), the girls being from across the entirety of Japan and nearby countries like South Korea and China (unfortunately disproven by Tweets, this one was my favorite), and finally to this group being Love Live’s drama-centered show as a response to the popularity of AveMygo. The latter is still up in the air. Since new generations seem to come out on a 5 year cycle, it’s possible it was planned far before AveMygo. The idea of a generation called Blue Bird with activities centered around Twitter and Youtube does feel especially dated. It’s also difficult to grasp the tone of the project so far. While the original February teaser has the protagonist crying in a dramatic composition with somber piano music, the rest of the project seems like classic Love Live. There are later reveals that do give some credence to the drama theory, but not a lot.
10 days before the start, the official account began to reveal a girl’s image color per day. Honestly, it baffled me at first that this seemed to be the only way they were generating hype, as funny as seeing everyone’s over-the-top reactions to the colors has been. Then around May 3rd, people found The Tweets.
8 out of 10 of the girls’ in-character Twitter profiles were found, which suddenly gave us more information on their names, personalities, interests, and relationships. The story seems to match up with the traditional Love Live formula, where the girls form an idol group to save their school from closing down. This time, the Blue Bird girls go to an online/hybrid high school, which leads to interesting character motivations. There are characters attending because of poor academics/attendance (Polka, Mai, and likely Shion), family reasons (Laura and Hanabi), and, my favorite, personal ambitions (Yukuri, Noriko, Miracle, Hanabi, and likely “Midori”).
The reason I believe the drama-centric theory hasn’t been completely disproven yet is that there is a lot of evidence that could be interpreted as either for or against it. The complete title of the project, “Ikizu Live! Love Live Blue Bird!” has been spelled by the official account as both “living is hard club” and “live (show) is hard.” However, the Tweets revealed that it wasn’t named that as a reflection of the feelings of the group founders, but was instead already called that by an unused club channel in their school’s online communication platform.
What does seem to support the “living is hard club” reading is that many of the girls have personal failure and struggles in their Tweets (Polka failed her entrance exams and had to go to online school instead, Noriko is failing her seiyuu auditions, Yukuri has health problems that prevent her from achieving her dreams, Shion is depressed, and more). At the same time, there are also girls that don’t seem to have any failures or struggles that make their life hard, or at least not yet (Miracle, “Little Green,” Laura). It’ll be interesting to see what tone we’ll get.
I was and remain skeptical of using Twitter as a primary platform for storytelling considering its recent instability and ephemerality, but it is fun piecing their stories together. The potential for unreliable narration is also great (which would be very interesting in a drama-focused Love Live!). From Polka’s (the protagonist) Tweets, Mai seemed like a sweet girl who was more grounded in reality. I was surprised to realize from her own tweets that Mai is actually a tsundere with a short-temper.
Finally, I think it will be interesting to see how my perceptions of the girls change after the Big Reveal, so I’ll dedicate the rest of this post to that. This goes from left to right of their YouTube teaser.
- Girl 1 / “Little Green”: She was one of the two girls that weren’t found until around May 9th, which led to her being a lot more mysterious than she actually was. She was one of the silhouettes that initially caught my eye since her hairstyle reminds me of and makes me nostalgic for Nanami Hiromachi. We now know from her Tweets that she is a fierce environmentalist, worked a part-time job and donated her earnings to charity (seemingly on her birthday too?), and has a green image color. I’d like to see more about her other than her One Thing.
- Girl 2 / Laura: A hair and makeup enthusiast and one of the two influencers of the group. That alone doesn’t appeal to me (I like my influencers emotionally tortured like Ena Shinonome and Nyamu Yuutenji), but from her silhouette she could possibly be a gyaru. I love gyaru characters, especially those with a personality as kind and with an unashamed liveliness as Laura does so she has potential. It also helps that she has a very lovely pink as her image color.
- Girl 3 / Yukuri: She caught my attention as one of the two girls with actual short hair in this group, but I still didn’t expect to like her this much. She joined an online high school to work towards her dream of playing the male role, but her dream is now uncertain after unspecified health problems. My main worry is that Love Live will pull an “it’s okay for girls to be feminine” arc instead of letting her fulfill her dreams, just like Gakuen Idolmaster did to their princely character.
- Girl 4 / Akira: I was a bit smug when my guess of her being the sporty character was right. She’s a girl who takes her exercise regimen very seriously (most of her Tweets are about it). Her most intriguing trait to me is that she seems to have given up on the idea of being able to connect with other students as friends, even as she interacts with her classmates.
- Girl 5 / Mai: Since she is the shortest girl and has short hair, she already interested me the most and she did not disappoint. She’s an older sister, a programmer, and a bona fide tsundere. She shittalks (literally using the poop emoji) the girl who she ends up joining in an idol group the same month.
- Girl 6 / Polka: Polka is the protagonist of the group and she makes an unexpected impression by failing all her high school entrance exams in her first Tweet and getting banished to the online L High School (that is the name) as a result. She hates math, loves dancing, and can barely use technology. I don’t have a strong opinion on her yet, but she seems like the typical protagonist.
- Girl 7 / Hanabi: I was already intrigued by her kimono silhouette, but my guess for her personality was completely wrong. I thought she would be the elegant and big sister character, but she’s actually a dork. She wears a kimono everywhere and believes traditional Japanese clothes should be casual wear again. When she realizes other students in her hybrid classes might think she’s a weirdo, she thinks the solution is to wear a different kimono. We don’t really know much about her other than that her family’s kimono shop has been around for 4 generations, but I think she’s adorable in her earnestness.
- Girl 8 / Shion: She was mystery girl number 2 and was also found on May 9th. My original guess was that she would be the computer nerd of the group, but after Mai took that place as programmer, I thought she would be the musician/composer. Now that her Twitter has been found, it seems like she is a streamer and/or Vtuber. She seems to fit the “life is hard” worldview the most out of all the members. She makes concerning Tweets on Mondays about not wanting to go to school and talks about getting into arguments with her parents. Shion believes that only people online know the real her and wishes that morning would never come. She’s one of the members I’m most interested in.
- Girl 9 / Noriko: She has the personality I thought Mai would have. She’s a gentle and sweet girl who aspires to be a seiyuu, though she keeps failing her auditions. We don’t know a lot about her other than that, but she is one of the girls I like most so far.
- Girl 10 / Miracle: Okay, I didn’t have the highest opinion of her at first, but she grew on me. She is an aspiring pastry chef and friend of Noriko (so far the only connections between the 10 girls are Polka-Hanabi-Akira-Mai, Laura-“Little Green”, and Noriko-Miracle). She thinks Noriko has a cute face that is begging to be fed sweets, which is the most bizarre and adorable compliment ever and that wild worldview is what made me like her a lot more. Like Hanabi and “Little Green,” I hope to see more of her personality outside of her One Thing.
So far, Yukuri, Noriko, Miracle, Shion, and Mai are competing for my favorite. That’s a lot more than I thought I would have going into this. They got their claws into me this time. I’ve been working on this post for over an hour, so the Big Reveal may have already happened if they scheduled it for midnight JST (!!!).
I haven’t been invested in Love Live for about 4-5 years now, so when they announced the new project back in February, I thought of it as my chance to potentially get back in. I was worried I missed it until they posted the first teasers in April, which gave us two silhouettes for each of the 10 girls (one in casual wear and the other in what appears to be their group costume).
There were a lot of theories based on the new teasers, ranging from there actually only being 5 girls with 5 virtual avatars (thankfully disproven with the second teaser), the girls being from across the entirety of Japan and nearby countries like South Korea and China (unfortunately disproven by Tweets, this one was my favorite), and finally to this group being Love Live’s drama-centered show as a response to the popularity of AveMygo. The latter is still up in the air. Since new generations seem to come out on a 5 year cycle, it’s possible it was planned far before AveMygo. The idea of a generation called Blue Bird with activities centered around Twitter and Youtube does feel especially dated. It’s also difficult to grasp the tone of the project so far. While the original February teaser has the protagonist crying in a dramatic composition with somber piano music, the rest of the project seems like classic Love Live. There are later reveals that do give some credence to the drama theory, but not a lot.
10 days before the start, the official account began to reveal a girl’s image color per day. Honestly, it baffled me at first that this seemed to be the only way they were generating hype, as funny as seeing everyone’s over-the-top reactions to the colors has been. Then around May 3rd, people found The Tweets.
8 out of 10 of the girls’ in-character Twitter profiles were found, which suddenly gave us more information on their names, personalities, interests, and relationships. The story seems to match up with the traditional Love Live formula, where the girls form an idol group to save their school from closing down. This time, the Blue Bird girls go to an online/hybrid high school, which leads to interesting character motivations. There are characters attending because of poor academics/attendance (Polka, Mai, and likely Shion), family reasons (Laura and Hanabi), and, my favorite, personal ambitions (Yukuri, Noriko, Miracle, Hanabi, and likely “Midori”).
The reason I believe the drama-centric theory hasn’t been completely disproven yet is that there is a lot of evidence that could be interpreted as either for or against it. The complete title of the project, “Ikizu Live! Love Live Blue Bird!” has been spelled by the official account as both “living is hard club” and “live (show) is hard.” However, the Tweets revealed that it wasn’t named that as a reflection of the feelings of the group founders, but was instead already called that by an unused club channel in their school’s online communication platform.
What does seem to support the “living is hard club” reading is that many of the girls have personal failure and struggles in their Tweets (Polka failed her entrance exams and had to go to online school instead, Noriko is failing her seiyuu auditions, Yukuri has health problems that prevent her from achieving her dreams, Shion is depressed, and more). At the same time, there are also girls that don’t seem to have any failures or struggles that make their life hard, or at least not yet (Miracle, “Little Green,” Laura). It’ll be interesting to see what tone we’ll get.
I was and remain skeptical of using Twitter as a primary platform for storytelling considering its recent instability and ephemerality, but it is fun piecing their stories together. The potential for unreliable narration is also great (which would be very interesting in a drama-focused Love Live!). From Polka’s (the protagonist) Tweets, Mai seemed like a sweet girl who was more grounded in reality. I was surprised to realize from her own tweets that Mai is actually a tsundere with a short-temper.
Finally, I think it will be interesting to see how my perceptions of the girls change after the Big Reveal, so I’ll dedicate the rest of this post to that. This goes from left to right of their YouTube teaser.
Edit: now that I know slightly more about formatting, I’ll hide this block of text under here lol
- Girl 1 / “Little Green”: She was one of the two girls that weren’t found until around May 9th, which led to her being a lot more mysterious than she actually was. She was one of the silhouettes that initially caught my eye since her hairstyle reminds me of and makes me nostalgic for Nanami Hiromachi. We now know from her Tweets that she is a fierce environmentalist, worked a part-time job and donated her earnings to charity (seemingly on her birthday too?), and has a green image color. I’d like to see more about her other than her One Thing.
- Girl 2 / Laura: A hair and makeup enthusiast and one of the two influencers of the group. That alone doesn’t appeal to me (I like my influencers emotionally tortured like Ena Shinonome and Nyamu Yuutenji), but from her silhouette she could possibly be a gyaru. I love gyaru characters, especially those with a personality as kind and with an unashamed liveliness as Laura does so she has potential. It also helps that she has a very lovely pink as her image color.
- Girl 3 / Yukuri: She caught my attention as one of the two girls with actual short hair in this group, but I still didn’t expect to like her this much. She joined an online high school to work towards her dream of playing the male role, but her dream is now uncertain after unspecified health problems. My main worry is that Love Live will pull an “it’s okay for girls to be feminine” arc instead of letting her fulfill her dreams, just like Gakuen Idolmaster did to their princely character.
- Girl 4 / Akira: I was a bit smug when my guess of her being the sporty character was right. She’s a girl who takes her exercise regimen very seriously (most of her Tweets are about it). Her most intriguing trait to me is that she seems to have given up on the idea of being able to connect with other students as friends, even as she interacts with her classmates.
- Girl 5 / Mai: Since she is the shortest girl and has short hair, she already interested me the most and she did not disappoint. She’s an older sister, a programmer, and a bona fide tsundere. She shittalks (literally using the poop emoji) the girl who she ends up joining in an idol group the same month.
- Girl 6 / Polka: Polka is the protagonist of the group and she makes an unexpected impression by failing all her high school entrance exams in her first Tweet and getting banished to the online L High School (that is the name) as a result. She hates math, loves dancing, and can barely use technology. I don’t have a strong opinion on her yet, but she seems like the typical protagonist.
- Girl 7 / Hanabi: I was already intrigued by her kimono silhouette, but my guess for her personality was completely wrong. I thought she would be the elegant and big sister character, but she’s actually a dork. She wears a kimono everywhere and believes traditional Japanese clothes should be casual wear again. When she realizes other students in her hybrid classes might think she’s a weirdo, she thinks the solution is to wear a different kimono. We don’t really know much about her other than that her family’s kimono shop has been around for 4 generations, but I think she’s adorable in her earnestness.
- Girl 8 / Shion: She was mystery girl number 2 and was also found on May 9th. My original guess was that she would be the computer nerd of the group, but after Mai took that place as programmer, I thought she would be the musician/composer. Now that her Twitter has been found, it seems like she is a streamer and/or Vtuber. She seems to fit the “life is hard” worldview the most out of all the members. She makes concerning Tweets on Mondays about not wanting to go to school and talks about getting into arguments with her parents. Shion believes that only people online know the real her and wishes that morning would never come. She’s one of the members I’m most interested in.
- Girl 9 / Noriko: She has the personality I thought Mai would have. She’s a gentle and sweet girl who aspires to be a seiyuu, though she keeps failing her auditions. We don’t know a lot about her other than that, but she is one of the girls I like most so far.
- Girl 10 / Miracle: Okay, I didn’t have the highest opinion of her at first, but she grew on me. She is an aspiring pastry chef and friend of Noriko (so far the only connections between the 10 girls are Polka-Hanabi-Akira-Mai, Laura-“Little Green”, and Noriko-Miracle). She thinks Noriko has a cute face that is begging to be fed sweets, which is the most bizarre and adorable compliment ever and that wild worldview is what made me like her a lot more. Like Hanabi and “Little Green,” I hope to see more of her personality outside of her One Thing.
So far, Yukuri, Noriko, Miracle, Shion, and Mai are competing for my favorite. That’s a lot more than I thought I would have going into this. They got their claws into me this time. I’ve been working on this post for over an hour, so the Big Reveal may have already happened if they scheduled it for midnight JST (!!!).
