Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-39101827-20190425204311

'First, some background:'

'''Love Live's lives have always been fantastic. Whether watching them in person, a delayed live viewing, or seeing the DVD of a live years after it happens, the lives always have such a sparkling, shining feel to them. You can feel the "kira-kira doki-doki pika-pika" that the idols in the anime always mention. The crowd becomes a sea of penlights; everyone supports their favorite idol. However, there is one µ's song that always gives me goosebumps whenever I watch it live: Snow Halation. Why do I love seeing this live so much? Maybe it's the seiyuu's love for the song. Maybe it's Emitsun's beautiful "Todokete." Maybe it's the knowledge that without that song, Love Live might not have gotten as popular, and I wouldn't know who they are. Those are all valid reasons, but the main reason is the penlights. As mentioned on the wiki page for Snow Halation, it is the only µ's song with a "complete audience consensus on the penlight colors." Kotori's grey color for most of the song, but at the aformentioned "Todokete," the colors swit'''ch to Honk's orange, like in the original MV. The entire audience does this-- not a single penlight is a different color. It is breathtaking.

'''However, the franchise's main focus right now is Aqours. While many, many songs in Aqours are amazing, none had the penlight agreement of Snow Halation. That is, until the summer of 2018. (Note: The details on the Kananrail and Yousoroad I found were kinda sketchy, so I may be completely wrong on their origin. Let me know if I am.) Aqours had their very first full live in America, at LA's Anime Expo. The overseas fans wanted to thank the seiyuus, and create a penlight agreement, like Snow Halation's. There were three main projects: The Kananrail, the Yousoroad, and the AqouRainbow. The Kananrail was an attempt to mimic the visuals in Happy Party Train (During Suwawa's solo: "Omoi o nosete HAPPY HAPPY TRAIN to go!") and the Yousoroad did a similar thing in Koi ni Naritai Aquarium (During Shukashu's solo: Akuariumu de futari ga deau fantajii.) However, the AqouRainbow was a bit different: during Yuuki wa Doko ni? Kimi no Mune ni!, Anchan has a solo. The plan was to assign different colors to different rows, and have the sections put up the penlights in time with the music. Out of the three plans, the AqouRainbow was the most complicated, so it was the least likely to succeed, right?'''

Actually, that was the opposite of what happened. The Kananrail and Yousoroad unfortunately did not gain enough traction, but due to the tireless efforts of the AqouRainbow team, the AqouRainbow was a complete success. A video of it in action can be seen here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4LVAK6kHK0

LL staff tweeted this picture of the event: https://i.imgur.com/iVq0rGd.jpg

However, the penlight projects dosn't stop there. In the Aqours Asia Tour, nearly every stop on the tour did the Yousoroad and Kananrail (In seoul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wvzhHd_yEE and in shanghai (?) :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckVWpvqMojU ). And while the AqouRainbow has never been done again like in LA (to my knowledge,) the recent Korea performance did a similar thing in the song No. 10. (LL staff twitter link: https://twitter.com/LoveLive_staff/status/1119918868342775808 ) This was especially moving, since the audience yelled "nana," which is seven in Japanese when Arisha was supposed to say it, since Arisha was sick and unable to attend the live.

In the words of a tweet I saw recently, (https://twitter.com/itou_asa/status/1014730282484690945), Love Live isn't just a franchise made by the seiyuus. It's made by everyone, including the fans. From popularity polls to subunit elections to penlight projects, Love Live fans will always have a way of thanking the seiyuus, and shaping the franchise as a whole.

 