Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-24187738-20151214152123/@comment-27458069-20151223175251

Much like my experience with anime, I disliked idols before I knew anything about them. Also much like experience with anime, idols have defined my life once I began to know them.

Near the end of December, I was struggling through college applications when a friend suggested that I start the mobile game. She seemed really excited about it, so I told her I would start after college apps were over. This ended up not being the case, and I started it sooner than expected. As I quickly glanced through the app page before downloading it, I noticed the name “Love Live”, which I recognized as an anime, though I didn't know anything about the franchise. Despite the game starting off with Easy and Medium difficulty songs, I still found it quite fun. I played the game pretty frequently, mostly due to the LP system—I tend to want to do things as optimally as possible, and since I enjoyed playing the game, I wanted to use up LP whenever possible to play songs. The only piece of advice my friend gave me when I started was to save up loveca until I got 50, but nothing else, so I was pretty confused. I had no idea what the “B-sides” were, and since I started in the middle of a token event (the infamous Umi one), I was confused about tokens and events as well. I think I also ended up spending a loveca to revive myself from failing a song, and ended up failing the song anyway, lol.

As the days went on, I continued to learn more about the game. Another habit I have in regards to games is that I love to do research on them—within a few days of starting a new game, I’ll have looked up as much information about it as possible. Thus, with the help of the LLSIF wiki and /r/schoolidolfestival, I slowly started to get the hang of SIF. I learned what Score Matches, Token Events, and even Medley Festivals were. I browsed through all the available SR/UR cards and mentally picked a couple favorites. I started playing the game more avidly. I don’t know if I would call it an addiction, but I definitely played the game as frequently as possible as to avoid wasting LP. Fortunately, I didn’t think of waking up in the middle of the night to use up LP until about two or three months into the game, otherwise I definitely would have screwed myself over a lot more. My senior year being relatively light on coursework certainly didn't help my self-control either.

It was about three or four months into playing the game that I finally watched the anime. I had been meaning to watch the anime for a while, but always put it off in lieu of other shows that I wanted to watch more. I finally started it when a couple of my friends who I had introduced to the game started watching it; I wanted to beat them to finishing it, so I started…and quickly finished both seasons in three days. I was thoroughly engaged—I wanted to watch the characters interact and grow more and more, and I was never bored during an episode. I’m glad I started the game beforehand—it got me invested in the characters, making the emotional scenes that much more powerful.

My journey into the Love Live world continued ahead at full speed, as I discovered shipping and the myriad of fanart and fanfiction surrounding it. I learned more about the franchise as well; I discovered how big and popular it actually was and also discovered that the seiyuus were a big part of it as well. I started an account on the Japanese SIF server as well after winning a giveaway, and I quickly became absorbed in playing it optimally as well. Of course, I had my other anime and games, but SIF and even simply thinking about Love Live-related things definitely occupied a decent amount of my time.

In retrospect, I would say the best thing Love Live has done for me would be to introduce me to the world of idols. I quickly discovered AKB (the real life group, the anime, and the parody manga), which I had no idea existed before, and gained an interest in Idolm@ster, which I previously thought was silly. In discovering all these things, I gained a lot of respect for idols, both in anime and in real life. They practice hard, have a passion for what they do, and always put on a smile in front of their fans. Idols have also completely changed my view of dancing from something that I honestly thought was kind of dumb to a skill that I’d like to learn some time. Between the music I listen to and the anime I watch, idols have changed large parts of my entertainment, and as a result, my life as well. It may look like time wasted to other people, but getting absorbed into the world of idols has been an enriching experience that I’m glad I’ve been able to partake in, and I have Love Live to thank as being the catalyst for it.