Christmas may be over, but it's time for some belated presents from our very first giveaway! With 627 survey entries and a whopping 45 entries for the essay competition, it took us admins a long time to compare results to see who deserves the top prizes! So without further ado...
Thank you all very much for your valuable input! All of the data has been summarised into the following charts for your convenience.
There were also many, many kind comments included that are just too many to publish, but we would like to say a big "Thank you!" to everyone who took the time to leave us encouragement and thanks!
And now, for the winners! A random number generator was used to pick entries out of the entire pool randomly until we had enough entries to claim one keychain of each character.
Keychain winners
- 406, KuroHi, Kousaka Honoka
- 338, Zircras, Minami Kotori
- 425, HarItsu, Sonoda Umi
- 93, DonoMaki, Nishikino Maki
- 176, Riyumi, Hoshizora Rin,
- 196, erejearmin, Koizumi Hanayo
- 580, alice, Yazawa Nico
- 47, logann, Ayase Eli
- 167, @kushmario, Toujou Nozomi
For the last few, we had a few entries drawn whose favorite characters were already claimed, but fear not! Since you lot were clearly lucky enough to be picked, you all will receive a set of Angelic Angel postcards!
Postcard winners
- 202, Gabborin
- 283, nnishikinos
- 594, Mataichi
Emails will be sent to all winning entries at the email address they specified to obtain their mailing address. Kindly check your emails and respond if you are one of them.
With 45 entries to read, it was intensely hard for us to decide who would be the ones to walk away with the posters. Each and every one of you had your own stories to tell, and we loved reading them!
But with so many good entries, how could we possibly limit it to only three winners? And so we power-upped the prizes: Six of you will walk away with posters, and two of you with clear file sets! Here are the winning entries:
Tier 1: Our Favorite Entries
Statue of Liberty Poster:
Perezfroylan12's Entry |
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One of my dreams is to enjoy anime with my daughter. Since I am not in a relationship with her mother I do not get to see her that often, but when I do I always picture her sitting next to me enjoying it. She did not normally take any interest in it, but all that changed after we watched Love Live! together. She would always dance and sing along with a great big smile on her face. As her father nothing brought me greater joy than seeing her dance and sing along with my favorite idol group and anime and have fun at the same time. Whenever it would be my chance to have her she would always want to sit down and rewatch the series over and over again. When we would go out she would want me to play muse's music on the stereo. I feel as Love Live! brought us closer because I always hesitated in what kind of things she liked and how we could do things together. I believe our bond will continue to grow stronger because of Love Live! (as we are both eagerly awaiting for Aqours). I never imagined something like this would strenghten our bond, but I am beyond happy that it did as we can both enjoy something wonderful together. Thank you Love Live! from the bottom of my heart, hontou ni arigatou! |
Angelic Angel Poster:
Mockingjaysmat's Entry |
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I was in a really bad slump for a few months. All of my motivation to do anything was gone. I did a lot of nothing for a few months, except bury myself in schoolwork and avoid thinking about how I was not pursuing my dreams. My husband and I live on an Air Force Base in California, and this was our last year until his contract was up. By the beginning of next year, we can finally move back to our family and friends in New York, our home state. This slump hit me at the beginning of the year as I thought about how I still had an entire year left until I could see my best friends or my mom again without spending a fortune on a plane ticket.
My dream is to become a voice actress. I could not express to you enough how much I want this. I dream about it, I live it, I breathe it, and I want it to happen more than anything I’ve ever wanted in life. But the slump hit me when I realized I had wasted three years of being in California, the place to be for voice acting, and I had not done a single thing to further my dreams. I was miserable. I hated myself for being “lazy” and not “doing enough.” I was scrolling through Twitter one day when I saw that my friend had posted a picture of School Idol Festival. I asked her what it was and she told me that it was a rhythm game with cute anime girls in it, and I thought, “why not?” So I downloaded it. I immediately became addicted to it. I played non-stop for a few days straight, and immediately realized my favorite girls were Kotori and Honoka. I thought Kotori was the most precious thing and I admired Honoka’s determination and excitement that I only saw through the game’s stories. When I figured out it was an anime, I had to watch it. I binge-watched the entire series in about two weeks. It was around the end of March when I finished it. I fell in love. All the girls had these admirable qualities and the moral of the series, to follow your dreams and “make our dreams alive” really stuck with me. Honoka never gave up on her dreams, even when she was sick, she still danced and sang and tried her best. That same day I finished the series, I saw that there was a voice acting workshop near me, and the motivation to get up and get my dream to come true hit me like a ton of bricks (or lovegems… preferably lovegems). I signed up, even though I was nervous beyond reason, and started practicing and recording again, all the while thinking about Honoka and the girls of μ's and how they would not waste this opportunity. I went to the workshop in April and it was one of the best experiences of my life. At the workshop, I learned about an open casting call for a production company at Anime Expo. This made me more nervous than the workshop, since the casting call would be in front of everyone at the convention that walked by. I believed in myself, but this was such a big leap for me. It wasn’t that I was nervous about being in front of other people, but I knew I would feel defeated if I saw other people and saw how amazing they were. I went back into another slump for a month and sunk myself into tiering and playing School Idol Festival. I started looking up streamers on Twitch and joined the SIF Reddit, and met the wonderful people of the community. I expressed at one point in an SIF streamer’s (OwlRemember’s) Twitch chat room about the casting call, and remember people telling me that I should go for it. It reminded me of that drive I felt when I first watched the anime and how Honoka had all of her friends behind her cheering her on whenever she felt like she wanted to quit. I knew I had to do it. I had to try. So I did. And it was another amazing experience that I’ll never forget. I’m not sure where I’d be or what exactly I would have done if it wasn’t for my love of Love Live! To say it helped me get out of the slump would be an understatement. LLSIF and μ's motivated me to pursue my dreams and now I’m closer than ever. I cannot thank the LLSIF community, μ's, or Honoka enough. |
SUNNY DAY SONG Poster:
Stezie95's Entry |
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When I was a kid, I had a massive crush on Audrey Hepburn. I just absolutely loved her to bits and watched all her movies, and watched all the documentaries, and read everything I could about her. Through my teenage years, she was my go-to fantasy for whenever I was thinking about, you know, teenage stuff - making friends, going on dates, that sort of thing. Flash forward to mid 2014 - the second of four years in my psychology degree. My Audrey phase was long over, and she mostly became a relic of my adolescence. But what remained was this deep interest in the power of the imagination. When you get to fourth year, honours year, you pick a topic you like and spend the year researching it. Frankly, I didn't have any better ideas, so I felt like getting a headstart. For many months I buckled down and started reading about imaginary relationships with fictional and media personalities. (For those particularly interested, the term is 'parasocial relationship'; or just shoot me a message if you want to know more.) At this point, you might be wondering 'what does this have to do with Love Live?' That'll come shortly. Firstly, I should mention that it's around this 2014 period where I started to get introduced to anime. In my early days of anime, I had this feeling that something lost had been found. Especially in the slice of life genre, where I genuinely felt that the characters had been my friends for years, just like in my Audrey Hepburn phase. But at least this time, I was building the background knowledge to understand this whole imaginary relationships phenomenon from a psychological perspective. However, the people around me... weren't as enthusiastic. I tried to keep an open mind and accepted that not everyone would think highly of imaginary relationships, but the kind of responses I started to get from some friends and classmates were bordering on malicious. It seemed instinctual to most others to dismiss this kind of thing; to brand someone as sad, or lonely. I've even been called degenerate at one point. And that hurts. It's one thing to have your interests attacked, it's another to have your emotions and passions belittled and devalued when someone says that your feelings for a character 'just don't matter'. I knew that wasn't the entire truth. I'm not a sad or lonely person. I'm not particularly introverted. I don't have low self esteem or anything else people would rattle off when talking to me.(My current research confirms and disconfirms some of these, but that's for another time.) Eventually though, all the negativity did wear me down, until I slowly lost interest in the topic altogether. Then I watched Love Live. Love Live got my blood boiling. Love Live gave me a slap in the face, pulled me up, and told me that this whole topic was worth fighting for. Love Live made me unafraid and unashamed to fight for it. There have already been some great stories in this thread about the big lessons of Love Live such as working hard for your dreams and never giving up. Of course those played a big part. And then Rin. I'll be spoiling season 2 of the anime here. Oh my goodness, Rin. In episode five, she essentially became a mirror that pierced right into the kind of person I was. In that episode, we see how the innocent, naive cruelty of some unknowing kids were what forced her to lock away a part of herself. Just as she was no longer comfortable with being 'cute', I was no longer comfortable with the idea that imaginary relationships were a positive thing. And I came to absolutely adore her. Her struggles were my struggles, her victories were my victories. By the end of the show, I was convinced that I couldn't just let all of the research I'd already done just rot. It was only a small dream, but a dream nonetheless - my research topic had to be in imaginary relationships. It's at this point I realised something. All of the support I had gotten from μ's and Rin were real. All of the gratitude I had to give in return was real. Them being fictional characters became irrelevant. Any relationship may be imaginary, but it definitely exists. It was that eureka moment, that proof of existence where I could say "for better or for worse, this exists" - this truly was the life changing moment. I splashed my face with some water then sat down and got to work and never really stopped working. Until, somewhere along the way, I picked up SIF and that almost jeopardised my chances of even making it into honours year. (Long story short, tiering + exams = one really close call.) Today, I had my first meeting with my supervisor to discuss my research for the coming year. And I'm psyched as ever to get started (pun completely intended). Even though there were lots of building blocks along the way, I can confidently say that Love Live was the most influential factor in getting me to where I am now. And that seems to be some kind of mad scientist who's being kept alive by cheesy idol songs, and I'm totally ok with that. |
Tier 2: Other Great Entries
Angelic Angel Posters:
AsriaYK's Entry |
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Well… how to start? They say it’s the common things in daily life the real actual treasures. I believe this is true, things thought to be simple by others become a real treasure to those who know how to cherish it; that’s what happened to me when I learned about Love Live. Things were quite simple; I was on my final winter of high school, incredibly bored out of my mind. I have a strong liking to passionate stories with yuri, and having nothing better to do I decided to check out Love Live since it was becoming popular at that time thanks to its popular ships. Boy I didn’t know what I got myself into. What I thought would be a cliché series of cute girls and pop music turned out to be one of the gems I cherish the most up to this date. Without noticing those 9 girls slipped into my heart and made laugh, cry and sing as their stories continued playing on my T.V. It was heart wrenching hearing each of their stories and identifying with them, Rin and Nozomi especially. Where am I trying to get with this? Every lesson has its beginning and this was my lesson; don’t let anyone decide what you can and can’t do. EVER. Let yourself put your own limits and fight to actually achieve them, don’t just wait for some kind of miracle: make it happen. I can’t say Honoka is my favorite girl, she certainly isn’t, yet every time I see her she shines brightly and somehow warms my heart not because of her singing, or her appearance. But because her motto. Her way of looking at life is what made an actual change in me. Just as Nozomi and Rin I was a secretly insecure girl, afraid of leaving friendships more than 6-year-old behind to study my career and more afraid to actually express that same fear. I was also going to study a career in which I was extremely good, yet I couldn’t get to enjoy it. For more than 5 years I had constantly given my parents academic results worth many awards, yet I felt empty. I was doing everything for their sake, not for mine. Many times I asked myself: What do I actually want to achieve? What’s the purpose of all this crap I’m doing for others? Since when did my days become so gray and monotone? Philosophy class on my last semester made me realize I had stopped living for myself. I had stopped doing what I enjoyed to make others happy. I was losing years in actions that carried no actual weight to me. Still I had no guts to say I actually wanted to study Medicine and my motivation wasn’t just strong enough to change it. And so half a year later I was studying something that I learned to hate. I still kept reading new Love Live material at the time and playing SIF the most I could, but lacked the same spark to enjoy it as I did so before. Until I told a friend to watch the series; to force him to do it I actually had to accompany him throughout the 2 seasons. That’s when my spark was ignited once again after re-watching the whole series. Being honest I’m the type of person that is moved easily, and watching the whole series again allowed me to find the courage to leave the career I was taking: Mechatronics. For the rest of the semester I didn’t go to school, instead I worked and studied to pay for the exam to get a good scholarship. It wasn’t much but I was able to get a 50% total scholarship, more than enough for both of my parents after hearing what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Right now, a year later, I’m studying what I want, and though I can’t dedicate as much time to SIF as I did before, Love Live holds a strong presence in my daily life in the most mundane activities possible. Every hardship, obstacle or problem I find becomes just something I must cross step by step to reach my upmost desire; change lives for the better. The change in me came from one of the dumbest things ever: searching for yuri in a bored morning of Winter vacations. Yet that unplanned action at the end brought me to one of the most important decisions I feel I’ve ever made.
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EOshiro's Entry |
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I'm not very good at expressing myself through words but I'll try my best! Love Live stuff has been near the side of the internet I'm on for years now... so I've always felt great familiarity around them all! A year back or so I lost some friends and I was honestly depressed... I just felt very lonely and lost. I decided to watch the Love Live anime soon after and... I don't know why but Honoka and the others just running around and being silly always made me grin. Muse faced many failures throughout the show and I know I would've just given up, but they didn't do that. They got right back up and tried again, it was very inspirational. Seeing them all share such a strong bond and unbreakable determination.. It gives me tears of joy. I'm a lot more boyish than I'd like to be, and I don't think I can manage looking cute in a dress or frilly clothing, I relate a lot to my beloved Rin. Seeing Season 2's episode "A New Me" where Rin is told to be the leader and to wear such a frilly, femenine outfit, revealing that she's actually very self-consious, I love that episode so much. I watched her struggle throughout the episode, fighting herself, and I teared up seeing her so upset.. Only to see Muse at the last moment giving Rin the dress and making her wear it... The pure joy Rin showed was so heartwarming and inspirational, even I've tried dresssing a little more feminine and 'Hey! I'm getting there bit by bit!' Rin is a great inspiration to me. Whenever I need a mood booster, my go to is Muse. I find myself listening to Muses songs like "No Brand Girl" and "Start Dash" and many more, they fill me with such inspiration and determination. They sound like they are all trying so hard, "FIGHTO!" As Honoka would say. I would laugh, I would cry, I went through a lot and they stayed with me every step of the way, and I am happy they all are a part of my life. I hoped you enjoyed listening to my story. |
SUNNY DAY SONG Poster:
Thebookofnaga's Entry |
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I guess the story starts with me saying I've never particularly liked my hometown. I wasn't totally miserable, but I dreamed for years about what it would be like to experience someplace new. A place that made me feel truly at home, where I could spread my wings and be free to be whoever I wanted to be. I wasn't a great student, so once I found the place I wanted to go to college, I worked my butt off so I would be able to pull my grades up enough to get accepted. And I did!! Moving there and starting a new life was so much fun, and I felt instantly at home. Making new friends, trying new activites, and living somewhere I loved for the first time in my life was amazing. It was everything I'd hoped it would be, and I felt like I'd flown to the top of the world. And then I got very sick. Because I was so ill, everything I had worked and longed for got yanked out from under my feet with no warning. My life at school crumbled apart fast, and I had no choice but to drop out and return home. The pain of that was, and still sometimes is, crushing. Having a new life at a college that I loved was the only dream I've ever really had. With that gone, I didn't know what to do. How was it fair that I had worked so hard and failed anyways? So much for flying. I spent over a year feeling completely lost. I had no direction, and I didn't really see the point in trying to find one when I knew that it was possible for me to lose it all without any serious wrongdoing on my part. Somewhere during that year, a close friend introduced me to Love Live. I can't remember exactly when it started being more than just a mobile game or an anime to me, but it has definitely evolved into something very dear to my heart. μ's songs, melodies of doing your best with the help of the people around you, and of not giving in to sadness, and of hope, mean the world to me. They remind me of the happiness I felt while I was building my dream. Love Live helped me understand that I can still keep going. I'm not powerless. μ's first attempt to win the Love Live ended pretty horribly, but that didn't stop them!! I want to be like them. I don't want one failure to stop me from getting up and trying again, even if it does have to be for a whole new dream. Because despite the fact that it was fleeting, I did succeed. I got to where I wanted to be, and I will do it again. In the words Honoka herself spoke before Sunny Day Song, I can fly whenever. Like I did back then! I never want to forget that, so I got a little something to help me always keep that message in my heart. :) http://imgur.com/lspah9A I love Love Live with all my heart. I'll be eternally grateful to μ's, both the real and fictional versions, and I hope they can experience the same amount of joy they've given me. |
Tier 3: Honorable Mentions
Angelic Angel Clear File Sets:
GomiMaster's Entry |
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I've always loved idol and idol music, and I've always loved anime, so to have both together is really just amazing. I usually don't watch shows with majority girl casts, but Love Live is the exception, and wow what an exception it is. I can't remember the last time I've felt so attached to a music group. Another thing Love Live has done was give me the confidence in my cosplays, something that for years I never felt. I usually don't like myself in cosplay, but cosplaying Nozomi, I've never be so confident before in almost anything I've done. Love Live also has helped me get over some really tough times. When I'm really stressed or sad about school (aka every day of my life) listening to their songs makes me forgot about that, even if just for a minute. I love how Love Live shows that yes, friendship can exist between a group of girls, something that people always say can't "be possible since girls don't get along." But to see a group of girls get along with no fighting or drama makes me so unbelievably happy. Love Live has ruined my life, yes, but in the absolute best way possible. |
Kimmikiwi's Entry |
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These encounters with everyone - Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari These past 3 years have been filled with so many memories that I'll treasure from here on out. It's not even an exaggeration to say that Love Live! is the best thing that's ever happened to me (or the worst, who knows). LL! has given me happiness, tears, friends, inspiration, and everything it possibly could. It's even turned me into a better person, I dare say. The emotions I felt with Love Live! were nothing but genuine. I remember everything from the curiosity when I first chanced upon it on Crunchyroll's new season releases, to the hole that formed in my heart when they announced their last live and I realized that all good things must come to an end. I had never felt such excitement when I heard that the LL! movie would be premiering at a theater nearby. It was on par with the time I soloed my first UR, the initial Smile Nico. My happiness couldn't be contained when my sisters bought the tickets and I later sobbed my eyes out at the closing credits. In fact, Bokutachi wa Hitosu no Hikari actually still makes me tear up. Love Live! gave me the chance to connect with some great friends I consider dear to me today. I met one at 2015 Fanime, hugged another at the LL! movie premiere and even later spent a day at the mall with the one I hugged. The two online friends I treasure most and I just had our 1 year anniversary and we will soon be doing a switcharound meme to commemorate it. I even got the Skype of a girl from China who randomly messaged me on JP SIF! Although we don't talk often, I still appreciate that she bothered to talk to me at all. Funny as it is, Love Live! is always how I get out of art block and inspired. For some reason, I really like drawing Nico and have pages in my sketch book of her. Her signature pose never fails to make a pleasant doodle! Just recently when I was struggling with drawing, I drew Nozomi for my friend. I also have 2 LL! posters on my wall that I admire to motivate me. The lines and intricate details make me strive towards being able to create something equally amazing. It's really quite strange how much of an emotional bond I have with this series and how much it has changed my life and myself. I used to not care about idols. Now, I live and breathe them to the point where the priority apps on my iPhone are School Idol Festival, Ensemble Stars and Starlight Stage. If you told me 4 years ago that a group of 9 girls would change everything in my life from friends to cash in my wallet and even my outlook on life, I wouldn't have believed you. Now? I know it's definitely possible. We won't ever forget this, until the end of time - Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari ラブライブ!がだいすき!アイドルがだいすき!ありがとちゅん!この気持ち忘れないよ! |
For all winners, this is extremely important: We need you to enter the Wikia Chat to PM any of the Admins or Moderators your email address to facilitate delivery.
We're not going to just put our email here and ask you to email in as anyone could masquerade as you in that case. Please come into the chat and PM any of the mods, all of which have a symbol next to their username on the panel to the right of the Chat.
That is all we have for now, and we certainly hope everyone had as much fun taking part in our first giveaway as we did organizing it! Be on the lookout for our second giveaway, which is coming very soon!
(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ Enjoy your idols!~
♪ LuciaHunter ♪ 08:44, December 28, 2015 (UTC)