From the Author
The details for a brand new school idol group in the latest upcoming project in the Love Live! franchise, Love Live! Superstar! have been revealed. These include character designs, backgrounds, and a group name, Liella! An anime is to be aired probably next year, after the one for Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, which is airing in October. Both are in addition to the projects about μ's and Aqours.
This work is my first antici-fic (anticipative fiction); it visualizes how a first season of Love Live! Superstar! might play out.
But as of June 30, 2021, the second anime preview has been released. There are noticeable differences in how the official story and this work turned out, at least for the first episodes, maybe. It much more closely matched predictions on a certain Instagram post. So now I think S-Go is less of a prediction and more of a remake (or pre-make?) of LL Superstar.
I have picked opening and closing themes (two of Aqours' lesser-known songs) for this fic, giving my overall impression on how the OP and ED could sound like. Taking KimiSora into consideration, I am even more convinced of my choice for both.
The names are different, and some features aren't named, but it should be abundantly clear which show this story pays tribute to.
I am uploading it here pending a separate fanfic list for Love Live! Superstar! as all four projects are considered part of the School idol project series.
Feel free to leave a fav, follow, review, even a guest blurb.
AHRIGHT, LET'S SUPER-START!
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I am not somebody who misses out on something big, not if my best buddy is in it.
So when Kanon-chan at last got enough nerve to stand on stage back in the sixth grade, I was beyond excited, and raced to the auditorium right after class, even leaving behind the cleaning duty. I was sure Akiko and the rest will thrash me for it, but heh, I thought, wait till they hear this one sing.
I was never prouder of Kanon at any time in my life back then, than when she put her face out in public. She was a born singer, Gah! and it was patently unfair to let that voice waste away, way away from the light of day.
The school was holding a huge play, and the auditions were a massive event in its own right. The crowd was already half the audience of the play itself! The production was going to be partly a musical, so they held auditions for singing first. And right there, standing alone in the middle of the platform... Kanon-chan! I cheered inwardly. I can't believe it... have you decided to launch your career?!
Huh?
Her knees were shaking.
From the corner of my eye, I spied her Mom suddenly looking worried. I caught the mood, and in a few minutes, the rest of the audience were murmuring, as well. W-Wait, what's going on...? "I can't do this!" screamed the frightened girl, and she bolted from the stage with the microphone, apparently forgetting to return it in her haste.
Something came over me immediately; I didn't waste any time standing in disbelief or anything. The murmuring crowd must have prepared me. Anyway, I found myself pushing through the crowd and soon I was dashing furiously down the corridor to the gym closet... Somehow I sensed this was the place she would hide in. And I caught up.
The look in her eyes was frightful instead of sorrowful; I knew she was ashamed, of course, but I was holding something and intended to smack her with it... I don't remember what it was, OK? Somehow I grabbed something on the way.
"You..." I growled. Kanon was frozen. I must have looked really scary. She uttered a most pitiable wail, and I would have relented, honestly, I never wanted to see my girl hurt. But this... this was so wrong of her! I swung the thing in her direction and it landed squarely on her face.
From then on, it had been years, nearly all of junior high, in fact, of us not talking about singing. I also got into dance, so all mention of song was further suppressed, until that summer of our last year, in which I told her to dance with me, even sing again if the music asked for it. So we sometimes talked about voice, sang together at lunch, even, (we were both into Love Live music, you know) but our career path, as we saw it, was going to be dance; learning dance, I mean, maybe compete in a contest, maybe do a flamenco for Kanon's Granny, but not really to dance for show.
Until that night. No rather, not at that moment, but definitely after it.
I didn't hurt her badly, alright?! At least I am sure of that one.
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SUPERSTARS! GO!
スーパースターズ! GO!
by StudioHOP
Published September 19, 2020
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#1. Welcome to Shibuya!
THE TWO GIRLS, best friends, couldn't believe their ears.
Standing outside the school auditorium, they could hear it as though they were inside with the audience.
It was the most thunderous applause they have ever heard in their life.
The lights from the auditorium were blinding.
But they did not quite mind, they were still trying to convince themselves that what happened had actually happened.
"No way," one of them mumbled.
The other, the orange-haired one, was no less stunned. But she kept her thoughts in her head.
She is... She's a real school idol!
Tap tap tap.
Tap tap tap tap.
Tap tap. Tap tap.
Tap tap tap.
Tap. Tap.
Crackle...
"Yazawa here. Can anybody hear me...?"
Sumire sat on the roof of their house in Kita-Aoyama, some way off the bustle of the more "downtown" part of Tokyo, though she wasn't so sure about competing radio signals. Nah, she dismissed, it's five minutes to four in the morning, who'd want to be up and blogging or texting at this unearthly hour... aside from geeks, but her side of town had no geeks far as she knew.
She only had a loose tee with five asterisks on it. A point of pride of hers was that she can withstand hours of brutally cold airconditioning when others were visibly uncomfortable, so being up here since three was a cinch.
Crackle...
"I am here. Can somebody hear me?"
Tap. Tap tap.
Another thing, not so much a point of pride, was a snug little secret about the roof. Their house was a refurbished classic mansion, the only Western-style structure in a traditional Japanese compound, so not all of the old features could be eliminated. And one of those features was an attic with a skylight. Her "ultragalactic portal."
"..."
"..."
That's it.
She thought she picked out an odd noise from the soft static of her ham radio-telegraph-thing device. Sweet. Signals from the stars always mixed nearly seamlessly into the background noise of the universe, and only well-trained ears like hers can pick them out. This is the right time. She quickly gathered up her equipment and shinnied down to the attic with it.
In a moment she was out on the street on her bicycle, toting on her back something half as tall as her and wrapped in brown cloth. The air was cold and still, and the bike swept by like a momentary breeze you're never sure actually blew.
"Venga..."
Kanon lumbered over to the bathroom feeling like a mess. She had been like this since Tuesday. She couldn't sleep all that well and she'd wake up at random times during the night. There must be a way to get that beauty rest back, maybe a warm shower would do. Seeing the clock, she wondered, is it still worth it? It will be morning soon. It won't do to go back to sleep now, anyway, she got a cafe to look after and her folks will find out much sooner about her problem if she suddenly got up late.
She decided to brush her teeth first. Man, she hated the strong mint flavors of "real" toothpaste, she missed the old fruity flavors she had back in middle school. But she was getting used to it. She finished brushing and washed her face.
Must there really be so many changes as one grows up? She still wasn't very confident about her vital stats, which seemed to change wildly over the past three years and she wasn't sure if for the better. And her hair is...
What?
A lock of hair was sticking up like a sore thumb just above her forehead.
Grrrr. Why is everything going wrong with me?! She reached out for some hair gel and resolved to flatten the thing for good. "Not on my watch, you! Humph." She dumped a generous helping on her open palm and slathered it all over until her head was a smooth as a bowling ball. "Lucky!" she said with a wink.
And then... she watched that same lock of hair slowly rise back, and suddenly bounce up like the spring of a broken toy.
Sumire pulled over right in front of the gate of what was going to be their new school two weeks from now. She looked up with eminent satisfaction at the night sky. Still carrying the thing on her back she vaulted over the gate in two swift moves, jumped down gracefully, and dashed to the open grounds.
As soon as she got there, she was pleased to find the place wide and clear of any obstructions, and nary a cloud in sight. The morning star blazed reminding her to work fast before dawn breaks. She took out her phone and dialed a number.
Back at Kanon's she was whipping up her hair into something akin to Einstein's with the dryer. She regarded the results, less than satisfied. It will probably all fall back into place in an hour, and who can tell if it only made the ahoge stand out even more? Hah...
A loud ringing of the phone startled her. She rushed back to bed and picked it up only to see something had never hoped to. That number. That name. Why now, of all times?! "She wants to rub in my face her absolute control of my fate, grrrr..." She quickly hung up, but a message immediately followed, and her phone always showed the message before it could be deleted. Tch! Alright, let's see what the master demanded of her slave at four-thirty in the morning...
She gritted her teeth as she finished reading. But she can't help it now. It was entirely her fault.
She had seen her before. The girl had floored her the first time she laid eyes on her.
She was the most elegant creature she had ever come across, and that in a side of Tokyo full of fashionable people.
Entering the cafe one languid Saturday afternoon, Sumire sported a long, extravagantly floral summery dress of a powder blue hue that complemented her skin perfectly if it wasn't so cliché to say it. Her eyes practically shot through her glasses as she approached the counter she was manning, staring at her as a sharpshooter would. I wouldn't want to get on the mad side of this one, she clearly remembered herself thinking at that time. And that's exactly what she did.
The customer ordered a kind of millefoglie that was difficult to pull off, but not impossible she said to herself. Besides there was no other client at the moment so she can take her time.
When she returned, the lady looked like she held a childhood grudge with her and she even felt genuinely guilty for a minute or so. "Eh..." she mumbled. "Is something the matter... Ma'am?"
Sumire seemed to have smirked for a moment, must be a split-second, she wasn't even sure she smiled. When the girl spoke up, she decided there had been no smile at all. "You wasted my time, dear."
"Heh? I... I finished your millefoglie, Ma'am."
"Humph. I should have known. Amateur cafes like these can't finish a proper dessert in half the time an actual resto could."
Kanon raised an eyebrow. "Uh, excuse me, Ma'am, I-I don't remember something as painstakingly crafted as a millefoglie was finished in two minutes."
"Two minutes? I lost forty of those minutes already. Look, bright gal, this is the first time I had an employee like you argue with a paying customer."
"But... But you haven't paid yet!"
"Time. Is. Gold. If I had a talent fee of a hundred-fifity thousand yen an hour, I've already given you one hundred thousand. How much is that dog food of yours?"
Kanon could barely swallow down the rising sourness in her throat. She'd always hear Mom say not to ever argue with customers. She blew it. There's probably lots more people who could finish the pastry in half the time. "I-I'm sorry, Madam," she said anxiously, "I'll take this back..."
"Gimme your number."
"Eh-?"
"If you don't give me your name and your number right now, I'll make sure this so-called cafe of yours will get a bad rap online. Do you realize that I'm an influencer?" Wink. Pose. "Galaxy! I do video streams."
"I'm sure she went for the millefoglie 'cause she was hunting for a maidservant," grumbled Kanon as she donned her jacket and pushed through the door into the cafe. "Manmosu," she said to the sleeping Scops owl on a perch next to the bar, "keep an eye on this place while your're snoozing, OK?" She unlocked the front door, relocked it and got her bicycle. "She would have taken the baked apple if she's a normal customer. She didn't even say hi to Manmosu like a real customer would. Entitled Shibuya brat."
She took out her headphones and smiled fondly. "No matter. So long as I have Honoka-sama's music, I'll be fine." She donned them and as soon as this music was on she pushed off and sped down the gently sloping street to the school she and the "entitled Shibuya brat" will attend two weeks hence. She sang along to her heart's delight.
Yume Naki Yume wa Yume Janai
Lyrics: Aki Hata; Composition and Arrangement: Kyou Takada
It's a challenging morning, but I won't let myself feel down! Yes! Hiyah, I'm Kanon Takami. I'm going to be a first-year at a lovely new school here around Harajuku. We will be the pioneer students. Eheh. It feels like stepping on the beach of an uninhabited island, and we're building a new town on a distant shore. I never felt like that before.
At that same moment Chisato Watanabe was taking an early morning jog and had just taken her extra-thick peach juice out of the vendo. She enjoyed making weird slurping noises with the drink. "Ah! That was good. I guess I can do a few more miles before I get back to work." Just then, she saw Kanon speed by. She quickly noticed that orange hair on a red-and-white bike. "Eh...? Kanon-chan's up at the same time as me? And we're on the same street? Do our brain waves share the same frequency, after all?" Mimicking antennas with her fingers, "beep beep. beep beep. kanon-chan. treat me to a gelato. beep beep. gimme my dictionary back. beep beep. lend me two hundred yen again, please! beep beep."
Kanon braked in front of the school gate with a screech and quickly parked the bike right there at the gate. She doffed the headphones, and gazed at the height she needed to scale. "Am I going to climb this?!" she wailed. With a distressed groan she nonetheless clambered up in three moves and jumped down the other side, hurting her ankle. "Ow..." At the same time her ahoge bounced up anew and added to her irritation. "Why did you have to do this to me?" But she pulled herself in a moment and limped onward.
Sumire was standing in the middle of the grounds, arms folded and eyeing her as she arrived. "Well?" she said, in a tone that means, what took you?
Kanon paused to catch her breath. "Wait, my ankle..."
"Did I tell you to hurt yourself? Stupid... Hurry up!" She quickly flung the wrap off of the thing, which was some sort of elaborate antenna with another smaller ham-radio-like device built in. "We only have thirty minutes."
Grumbling, she went and helped Sumire set up everything. Soon enough, she was watching her talk over the mic. "Starcraft Oumuamua... Starcraft Oumuamua... We are here. Answer us."
"Oumuamua...? Hey, isn't that a dust bunny or something?"
"Are you living in your basement?! Oumuamua is a spacecraft! It's in space!"
"It's not me! They said it's a dust bunny!"
"Who's 'they?' 'They' can't be knowledgeable of anything on the net but me, can they?"
"They're-"
"Hush! The radio is on. Our interstellar visitors will hear us arguing. Tch... Starcraft Oumuamua... Please answer..."
"Is this something for your video stream?"
"Shhhh...!"
"So you're aspiring to be next chemtrail expert? You gonna say industrial residue in the water will switch the sexes of the fish? Didn't know you were that kind of vlogger."
"Silence you! I'm picking up something!"
"Eh?!" She went over to listen in. "What's it say?" she whispered loudly.
They listened in for another minute or two.
"It's just a blip," breathed Sumire with an almost theatrical awe. "Or two. It's faint. But it's definitely different.
"We're about to hear something..."
For a very tense moment both of them were fixated on the device. Was Oumuamua a spacecraft, after all?! Kanon frantically looked about to see if there were any caretakers who might chase them out of the grounds, but there was nobody. They were on their own. There weren't even that many people in their corner of Tokyo, let alone at, what is it? Five minutes till five? If a voice was to be heard, then surely it is from...
Sumire turned white.
Kanon gasped. What's the matter?! It can't be... It can't actually be...?
"I'm hearing it..." gasped Sumire.
"..."
The smile of a madman began to form on her lips. "I actually... I actually heard a word..."
"A word?! Kanon looked behind them again and still found nobody. But this time she couldn't bring herself to turn her head back. Somebody, something must be emerging at this moment from those shadows at the far end of the field. She must keep an eye... and she didn't want to. "W-What..." she mumbled breaking out in cold sweat. "What word...? English? Esperanto? Russian?"
"Mah..."
"M-M-M-Mah?"
"Mah... Mah..."
What's that supposed to even mean?!
"Mah... Mah..."
"..."
"Mah, mah, mah..."
All of a sudden Kanon's breath got stuck in her throat. That... It's not Sumire's voice anymore. She also heard it! But is it even a word? Did Sumire-san actually decode the meaning already?
"My, my, such intrepid little girls."
A sentence! An actual sentence. A complete thought! Transmitted to her, not by the radio, directly to her mind... An... Uh... Uh, what? She did hear it clearly, but yeah, she didn't have the radio headset. What's going on? The two both turned to the side and yelped. It's another girl... in a long, flowing silken white... nightgown? Prom dress? Her long dark bluish, almost black hair flew in the breeze like a banner. She was exquisitely formed. Her skin was much finer than Sumire's even. This is the alien! How could it not be? It's just past five in the morning...
The beautiful stranger's expression sobered up. "What's with those stares?" she asked. Her voice was so fine, like a whisper, and she always spoke in a tone so soft, her irritation only sounded worried. "I am girl like you, can't you tell?"
Neither of them could quite say another word as the stranger approached them, right up to the point where she was standing right next to them. She was tall... "I can see you from my window. I never thought somebody would choose to make mischief at school before it even opens. You are both shameful."
Uh, what? At this, Kanon hastily gathered herself. "Um, excuse me, miss, I-I was dragged by this one here. It's not my habit to break into random places at random times."
"But I caught you, and that's all that matters."
"Who are you, anyway?" said Sumire throwing off her headset. "You act like you own this place just because you live next to it?"
Ren cat-smiled.
"And what about you? You feel like you can break into a gated campus anytime you feel like it?" And she gazed right into Sumire's eyes.
Sumire wanted to retort again, but there was something in that stare which chilled them both to the bone. Kanon took a side glance at Sumire and saw that she was being seized by a silent panic. Just as she herself suffered from her back at the cafe. So there's always a bigger fish, eh? she thought, b-but why am I at the bottom of the food chain?!
She was surprised to see the stranger sit down to her level, and take from her hair a hairpin... a comb hairpin? Her beautiful dark-blue hair flowed even more freely. The girl combed down her stubborn ahoge into a neat bang. As she gazed on in astonishment, she thought she saw a tender, motherly look on her eyes, but when the girl stood up and spoke up again, it was in the same refined, vaguely menacing tone.
"I'll be sure to remember your faces, you two.
"Put that contraption away at once."
スーパースターズ! GO!
Today was the actual first day of school. Technically, it was yesterday, but all they did was listen to a boring opening speech by a middle-aged teacher, who Kanon suspected was just rank-and-file. There was no Student President- well, that was to be expected given that everybody were entirely new here, but the owner or the director of the school was nowhere to be seen. None of the people who addressed them on stage introduced themselves as such. Yawn. Whatevs. She was walking to school under the blooming sakura in her headphones singing along softly to her μ's playlist just as she always did in middle school. As long as she can always do this, whoever ran the place was nothing to fret about.
"Let's go...
"Let's go!
"Kyou! Mou! Kyou-mou tanoshii!
"Itai!"
Somebody hit her from behind with what must be a fully-loaded backpack. "Chi-chan..." she growled. She turned to see Chisato amble by with her usual girly schoolbag with a pair of cute white wings.
"O-hayou!" she beamed in that lovely chime-like voice.
Kanon sighed, took her headphones off, and walked with her. "A troll, as usual, huh?" And then, with a giggle she grabbed her with a hug from behind and whirled her round with a wail from Chisato and a happy laugh from her. "This is my payback for always hitting me like that, my little troll queen."
"Moh... If I didn't do that, one of these days a truck will. Get off your headphones, for once. I honestly wonder why you haven't fallen into a manhole yet."
"Mochiron! It's μ's!"
"Yeah, right. You and your cheap Akihabara stuff again."
Kanon whimpered. "You and I grew up on this! We wouldn't survive middle school if not for them."
Chisato raised a finger to lecture her. "Ours is a first-class all-girls school in one of Tokyo's finest neighborhoods. We gotta adapt to our new situation now."
"It's μ's who taught you to love dancing."
"Uhm!" she agreed. "But I must take my dancing to a higher level this year. Higher than anything in Akihabara."
"Meh, stop pretending to be classy and all. Me, I'll always stay the same. I'll always carry the lessons μ's has taught me. I'll never give up no matter what. as Honoka-sama always says:
"Yo-shi! Iku yo... Se... no! Faito da yo!"
She was surprised to find that Chisato had repeated the lines along with her, with a matching guts pose. They laughed together hugging.
Just then... "Oh! The school bell! Fifteen minutes!" Chisato ran off dragging Kanon along. "My wings will take us there, they will take us anywhere!"
They dashed past the other startled students and drew heads, but quite a few of them they had known in middle school and they yelled at each other in greeting as they swept by right up to the school gates. Memories of old conversations flew by with them. "Non-chi, I think I'll be a dance instructor. Mom said they'll have a dedicated course to flamenco and ballet. Wonder if they'll have aerobics? Ehehe. I think I'll be the first to set up a dance club in our new school. What do you say?" "I thought you love takoyaki and cooking." "That's my second passion. I already have my part-time gig for that. But dance is my priority. You will help me out, right?" "E...to..." "Come on. You don't have any interests apart from μ's. You got no hobbies." "Well, yeah, I don't, but I love μ's so much, I overflow with them so much, I wanna share them to others. That's it! I want to sing and cheer up people! Just like μ's! Someday... Someday... I'll have my own song."
The short-haired girl took a place by herself on the bench at lunch, much satisfied with herself and holding a snowcone. But she did not eat it at once. She took out a phone with a panda sticker on it and began recording herself. She spoke in Mandarin so it was obviously for her friends back in Shanghai.
"I'm here now. See my uniform? It's just as I imagined a Japanese high school would have." Giggle. She showed them a school building. "Look at that. It's like a European mansion. I can say I'm in Switzerland and you'd never know. Eheh. Who knows, maybe I really am." She then recorded herself relishing the dessert. "I have a great time guys, so please don't worry about me. I'll soon meet a school idol so I'll send you the photos soon." She stopped recording for now to focus on her dessert.
All this while some girls where hiding in the bush behind her. "She's so cute!"
"Shall we approach her?"
"Um, can she even talk to us?"
"Guys, I hear her Japanese test was excellent. Maybe..."
"That's just a test. Can you imagine talking to somebody spouting textbook-ese?"
"Well, at least, we'd understand... the words... I think?"
"If I splash this hot choco on her, will she turn into a guy?"
"Eh? That's just mean!"
"Heehee..."
They spent the rest of lunchtime gazing at the beauty of this new girl in their new school.
"Kanon-chan?"
"Huh?"
They were standing by the busy street with many others, waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green, making their way home after school. "You were spacing out," said Chisato worriedly. "Did you follow what I was saying about our game plan?"
"Uh... yeah, of course."
A look of concern came over Chisato. "Non-chi... Are you worried?"
"Huh? Uh, why?"
"You think we'll flop somehow?"
"No, I mean, how will we know if we'll click or not?" The light went green and they moved on. "The only way to find out is to actually try, so there's no turning back."
Chisato raised an eyebrow. "You're not convincing." Sigh. "Remember, Non-chi, everybody else are just as new as us, so I'm sure they'll want to try out everything, including ours. If we slip up somewhere, they'll be a bit more forgiving. Plus, a number of those were with us in junior high."
They got to the other side and continued walking, without another word from Kanon.
"That's why," continued Chisato, "there's no reason for you to look the least bit down."
Kanon finally sighed in resignation. "Yeah, you're right," she admitted with a smile. "The going is good for us. I guess I was just feeling off about going home this early for the first time. We always had club right after classes. Well, that's part of it."
"Come on!" she said playfully hitting her with the bag. "Tomorrow will compensate for everything... massively! Where can you find a school that has a festival right on the very first week? Ne? Ne?!"
"Girls," the homeroom teacher had said, "our school admin wants you to be completely at ease learning in our institution. So tomorrow you will be granted a half-day to prepare for our two-day welcome fest."
A happy uproar arose from the class. Chisato and Kanon squealed together and did an elaborate high-five.
"If you need assistance in setting up your booths, we will have workmen to assist you. But you need to come up with your best ideas so everyone can have an enjoyable time."
Therefore, as they were walking home from school, Chisato broached the idea of them sharing a large booth housing products from her takoyaki shop and from Kanon's cafe. They even thought to put up parasol-shaded tables for customers. "Just like in Venice! It's our very own super-resto!"
They have finally arrived at the street leading back to Kanon's. Chisato still has a work shift. "Be sure to drop by with the booth menu from the cafe, OK?" she reminded Kanon. "We're open till nine. And, oh yeah! Please get three servings in one go so I'll look good with the boss." Elbow. Wink.
"If I can squeeze out cash from Mamaita I would."
"Eh..." grumbled Chi-chan. "That, in lieu of lending me three hundred yen. It's far cheaper! Ah! You're a cheapsport."
"And what's that?" she asked with a flat expression.
"You're a cheapskate and a spoilsport, humph." Chuckle. Wave. "Gotta go. See 'ya!" And she was off.
"See ya!" Kanon waved back. She watched her friend's back as she ran ahead. She waited till she was out of sight before taking something out of her pocket. A letter. She groaned as one with a gas pain. "I can't show this to Chi-chan."
ED Song
i-n-g, I TRY!
Lyrics: Aki Hata; Composition and Arrangement: Takeshi Masuda
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Next up! #2. A Real School Idol!
