LoveLive! Days - 2025 February Staff interview

Huge influx of new “Hasunosora no koto sukisuki club no minasan” over night, Surprising effect of “Ijigen Fes”

— “Link!Like! LoveLive!” (Abbrivated as Linkura) has passed 1.5 year mark. Let’s begin with a recap of the past year

Because of everyone’s support, we’ve reached 800,000 download mark the other day. Also, last April we added external top-up service “App Pay” which helps us Sisca charging with relatively low cost and we’re now doing fine in terms of sales. We have a high App Pay usage compared to other apps or games, so it might not reflect well on Google Play and App Store public sales ranking. As a result some people worry about how the project is doing, but I can assure that we’re doing just fine!

— We heard that the project rose in popularity and gained a lot of new users thanks to “Ijigen Fes IDOLM@STER Love Live! Uta Gassen“ held back in December 2023. What’s that reactions from people around?

Not only we have increase in Linkura users, but the few songs featured in Ijigen Fes got put in Spotify Viral chart. I also heard that we had to issue a reprint for the 1st fan book released on the release date shortly after Ijigen fes. Popularity suddenly rose up and more people are being interested in Hasunosora. We are so lucky to get to perform alongside not just Idolm@ster but also our senior from other LoveLive! series too. I really felt that all the support we received during the 9 months since the release back in April 2023 until Ijigen Fes in December 2023 allowed us to perform on such a large stage. I was also at the venue, and there were so much enthusiasm from the fans! The response when Nirei Nozomi called “Hasunosora no koto sukisuki club no minasan“ were very big. We might not have that much people, but there were immense passion from them. I’m glad I got to experience the cheering from the fans. We were the youngest group there so we were lucky we could show our presence there.

— In Linkura’s 103th Activity Records, We start by losing LoveLive! in January, following by Sachi-senpai graduation, the enthusiasm was at its peak. What’s the most memorable from January to March of Hasunosora 103th.

We started January 2024 by the episode of losing LoveLive!… Everything prior to that was “Linkura”’s prologue. It was the timing that we are finally standing at the start line.

— That was quite a long prologue!

At the end of 2023, Because “Everyone” help sent their Data in the event “Link to Us! Link with Yours!!”, our dreams of wining Hokuriku LoveLive! competition was fulfilled. Then we lost the final round after that. The FesxLive after that at the end of January was to express gratitude for all the support and we gave all the users highest rank ticket. This chain of events was the experience we strive to deliver to everyone since the project’s beginning. This was very a precious experience to me.

— After that in the 18th chapter Hasunosora 103th, we celebrate the graduation of Ex- school idol club president Sachi-senpai.

Sachi-senpai’s graduation episode was also in a sense a “rehearsal”. It’s one of the big events to let the everyone experience our base concept that Linkura is really moving in real time and we’re really graduating. I clearly remembered that many users were sad about her graduation. I hope from Sachi’s graduation, you get a taste of the essence of Hasunosora where “traditions” are created whilst members are changing.

— How did you tackle making these “Activity Records”.

Because this is the whole point of the application, we focus on what kind of experience we want to deliver to people with “Linkura” and shape everything around it. We want to make something interactive like the example I mentioned where we collect data in December and invite everyone to the Live in January. But we also want a story that is charming in its own too. We come up with a “blueprint” as a foundation after lots of discussions with the team. The Activity Records is different than other kind of text are more similar to an anime script than a visual novel. The scenario team are really good at it and I often get teary reading the scripts as a reader. We also put a lot of efforts into the

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