A thread titled “The story of Liella!, now the weakest group in the series, begins its climb back from here” appeared on 5ch’s Love Live! board. With new anime and manga releases drying up, fans argued over how to turn Liella! around. Some said the group should narrow its focus to its core fanbase and change its musical direction; others said it should give its sub-units clearer, more distinct identities the way other groups do. Still, pessimistic voices pushed back, saying “we’re long past the point where the music alone can fix this,” and the thread never reached a consensus.
1AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:24
This is the final chapter of 'The Story That Grants My Wishes' (a real Liella! song title).
6AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:34
My bad for assuming this was an anti-fan thread — it's actually a pretty reasonable take.
Maybe they should lean harder into selling the cast (voice actors) as personalities too.
8AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:38
Re: #6
The only way is to target balding middle-aged guys and low-status men (a Japanese term for socially/economically disadvantaged men). Forget the 'family-friendly, general audience' approach — that's trying to turn a 0 into a 1. Turning an existing 10 into a 20 is Liella!'s real path back to life.
9AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:41
As for the music, there'd be no problem at all if they just covered 'Snow Halation' (a classic μ's song) at a live show.
Sure, it'd stir up backlash afterward, but the people who'd complain don't spend money on Liella! anyway, so just ignore them.
12AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:59
Re: #9
That's dead-on, but honestly, no group — Star (Liella!) included — has the guts to actually pull that off…
15AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:08
I think the biggest problem is the music, so they should completely overhaul the sound.
16AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:12
Re: #15
They've been running the same playbook for six years, and even the cast themselves have been asking for songs with more of that flashy energy, but nothing's improved at all — at this point just covering 'KNOT' would be faster.
18AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:15
There's no doubt Star's songs are absolute garbage-tier, but we're long past the point where the music alone can fix this.
20AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:18
Re: #18
That's probably true, but doing something still beats doing nothing.
With no anime and the manga cancelled, all they can do otherwise right now is sit around and wait to die.
67AnonymousSep 11, 2026 21:12
Re: #18
They finally brought in Takezawa (a songwriter), but it was way too late.
19AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:16
Nijigasaki's high-energy songs were designed from the ground up purely to hype up a crowd, so they wouldn't actually showcase what Liella! is good at performance-wise.
They should be ruled out as cover options.
21AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:21
Re: #19
Maybe so, but if you don't have any hype cards of your own, you have to borrow them from elsewhere.
It's like starting a trading card deck — you throw in something like Blue-Eyes White Dragon even though it clearly doesn't fit your deck concept, just because you don't have anything better. That's basically where they're at.
22AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:25
Re: #19
They've been saying that this whole time, and look where it's gotten them. You only earn the right to lead with performance once you can actually compete on the songs themselves.
24AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:27
To begin with, these girls' voices are hopelessly mismatched for hype-up songs.
26AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:29
Re: #24
Ouch, can't argue with that.
Go a little easier on them.
27AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:29
Still better than Nijigasaki, which has zero demand, or 'Ikizu-Live' (a mocking nickname — 'hard-to-live-with Live' — for a rival group), which only ever gets talked about for its live shows.
29AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:31
Re: #27
Sorry, this isn't the thread for that — take it elsewhere.
28AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:31
This is more thought-out than I expected.
I also think they should unify everyone under the 'Suzuhara' route (going full cutesy-idol style, like that character).
31AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:32
Re: #28
If everyone became Suzuhara, that'd be the end…
Even if they need to prioritize low-status men, that doesn't mean the whole group has to go full 'aren't-I-cute' pandering mode.
30AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:31
Love Live! used to be extremely reluctant about crossover collabs and covers between its groups — doing that is actually a pretty recent thing.
If they'd started crossover covers back during Aqours' peak, the groundwork for fans accepting it would be laid by now, but doing it this late just seems likely to invite backlash.
32AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:34
Re: #30
Yeah, it was right around 'Ijigen Live' (the 'Dimension' concert) that covers and shuffle units started happening.
The fact that the very first 'Love Live Fes' was basically just each group performing separately in one-third slots is still having lingering effects.
34AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:36
The OP is also treating writing off the anime as a given premise from the start.
That mindset alone means it's not really Love Live! anymore.
36AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:38
Re: #34
It's not that we're writing it off — there's simply no more anime coming, so we have no choice but to treat it as a given. Sure, having it would be better, but you can't work with what you don't have.
39AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:41
Re: #34
I do genuinely feel bad that they got hit directly by COVID, but
they also never fully made the most of the material they had from three anime seasons.
35AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:37
I want them to actually put the sub-units to use.
If they can't write new songs, covering other groups' sub-unit songs is definitely a viable option.
40AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:41
Re: #35
Personally I think the sub-units are the whole reason Liella! fell apart, so I want them scrapped for good.
Every sub-unit just feels like a scaled-down version of the full 11-member Liella! to me, and even if they did cover other groups' unit songs, you can't even picture which unit would take on AZALEA's songs or which would take on DiverDiva's, right?
44AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:44
I honestly don't get what Star (Liella!) even wants to be going forward.
After the anime ended, all they gave us was variety shows and school-play-tier stage skits — don't come at me about the music after that.
45AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:46
Re: #44
Seriously, so true.
Why are they pouring their limited resources into weird stuff like that — I DO NOT GET IT.
46AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:49
As for the sub-units… even 'Ikizu-Live' (the rival group nicknamed for constantly making shuffle units) manages to give each shuffle unit its own distinct flavor every time, but Liella! barely manages that at all.
48AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:55
Re: #46
Someone compared it to 'Iron Chef' if all three Iron Chefs who showed up specialized in Japanese cuisine.
49AnonymousSep 11, 2026 19:57
Re: #46
I question whether every unit needed to go for the 'cool' image. Management was probably thinking something like 'heh, we can make three Guilty Kisses!' but all they actually did was split Liella! into three pieces.
71AnonymousSep 11, 2026 21:41
Within voice-actor units (even though they're not playing themselves as voice actors), they read as young, cute, and good at singing and dancing — but judged as general idols, they're not especially young, cute, or skilled at singing and dancing either.
Even if they ditch their in-show characters, they should stay within the anime-song (anisong) scene rather than leave it entirely.
There are examples of franchise-born units — like Milky Holmes, Earphones, or WUG (Wake Up, Girls!) — that went on to work outside their original franchise.
But none of them ever actually left the anisong scene.
If they're going to separate Liella! from 'Superstar!!', the best move is to make it an independent anisong group — have them sing theme songs for other anime, etc.
Their audience is, after all, the anisong-listening crowd, not the general public.
73AnonymousSep 11, 2026 21:44
Re: #71
Even if they tried to get tie-in themes for other anime, their voices are way too lacking in distinct character for anyone to actually cast them — these are Liella!, not Aqours, remember?
74AnonymousSep 11, 2026 22:16
Re: #71
Love Live! fans go easy on the cast and shower them with praise, but other fandoms aren't like that — if they're not skilled or don't show respect for the source material, they'll get torn apart without mercy.
If the cast has the resolve to take that beating and the actual skill to win over other franchises' fans, I'd love to see it, but honestly I think it's a stretch.
81AnonymousSep 11, 2026 22:38
What about putting real effort into YouTube?
Every time, run a project like hand-selling CDs at Aeon (a supermarket chain) through YouTube, with some reward if they hit their goal — really commit to it.
Honestly, I ended up liking a certain idol group after seeing a video of its members grinding hard on YouTube.
83AnonymousSep 11, 2026 22:45
Re: #81
I don't think that'd work. The ones who want to make it as individuals already have their own channels, and it's way easier to just get showered with praise on TikTok — that makes it a tough sell.
I can't see them sticking with the grind.
84AnonymousSep 11, 2026 22:48
Re: #81
Whatever they do, they'll just end up as a watered-down copy of 'Seihasu' (apparently a nickname for a rival group known for this).
Background and Key Points of Debate
Liella! is the fictional school idol group featured in the anime “Love Live! Superstar!!” The Love Live! franchise runs several real-life performing units — μ’s, Aqours, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, and Liella! — and in recent years, cross-group song covers and collaborations have started happening between them. What split opinion in the thread was whether the group should stick with its existing family-friendly, general-audience approach or pivot hard toward its core fanbase — a debate that recurs again and again around how to market idol content. It’s also worth noting that framings like “weakest in the series” or “anime and manga output has stalled” reflect the subjective impressions of posters in the thread, not externally verified facts.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Love Live!) thread “The story of Liella!, now the weakest group in the series, begins its climb back from here.”
