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There is no denying the popularity of the anime "Love Live!" and its follow-up "Love Live! Sunshine!!," especially among its legions of die-hard fans, the Love Livers. In fact, despite "Love Live! Sunshine!!" having ended its run about a month ago, enthusiasm hasn’t seemed to die down in the slightest.
On Jan 26, the official website for "Love Live!" posted a warning — the fourth to date — on their news page advising fans to calm down and adhere to the basic rules of human interaction etiquette.
It reads as follows: “Recently, some people are not observing proper manners and are disturbing the viewing experience of others in the audience. Conflicts between customers has also been triggered by this behavior. Because this may lead to legal trouble, we ask everyone to please follow the rules during viewings and please heed the warnings of the staff promptly.
If an improvement in behavior is not seen, the theater staff may deem it necessary to eject you. This may also impact the scheduling of any future live viewings.”
The term “live viewings” refers to a range of events from concerts and conventions to public screenings. The range of “not observing proper behavior” is wide, from reports of relatively mild human centipedes ending up the skirt of one of the characters to the assault and robbery of a fan who received chocolate from one of the voice actresses.
The following video shows a Love Liver destroying a rack of magazines or pamphlets reportedly because he wasn’t given a special edition item when purchasing his movie ticket.
Again, this is the fourth such warning, with the first two asking fans to not engage in trespassing or otherwise intrusive photography in the city of Numazu, where "Love Live! Sunshine!!" is set. The third advisory was to remind fans to respect the personal space of cast members and to not bother them during their private lives.
This latest warning has been embraced by the sane segments of the Love Liver population with many lamenting that it has had to come to this.
“There have been some really intolerable things recently.”
“Finally, it came.”
“Took them long enough.”
“Sad that the official website has to address this.”
“If they were true fans, why would the do something to damage the reputation of their favorite work?”
“It’s a problem, but other fans trying to solve it with violence is also a problem.”
“Because of some people who can’t control themselves we get all get this crap. What the hell?”
“I hope live venues and theaters are going to be cracking down on these troublemakers more and more from now on.”
“I went to a live viewing in Shanghai. It was very uncomfortable. I’m happy to hear that the producers are advising staff to kick these people out!”
So while it’s clear that this is just the work of a few bad apples, it still begs the Seinfeldian question: who are these people?
It’s interesting that given anime’s notoriety for works of graphic sex and violence, it’s "Love Live!" of all things that’s triggering certain people to get all wild and out. You certainly don’t see any Junji Ito fans bothering others by turning into giant snails or tearing their own heads off, do ya?
However, it is a testament to the success of "Love Live!" in that it affects people so deeply both in positive and less positive ways. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail so all of the hard-working, "Love Live" loving-n-living fans can continue to enjoy it for years to come.
Sources: Love Live! Sunshine!!, Naver Matome
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-- Going to an anime concert? Don’t forget to strap your collection of merch to yourself first!
- External Link
- https://en.rocketnews24.com/2018/01/29/love-live-warns-fans-once-again-to-refrain-from-being-jerks/
8 Comments
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Fox Sora Winters
These people are in need of some serious help. Immediately. Especially the human centipede mob. It's behaviour like that which causes anime fans to be stigmatised and ostracised. I've spent nearly 5 years now trying to defend anime fans and assure people that we're not all obsessed lunatics, and then this happens and makes me wonder why I bothered. The guy throwing a tantrum in a shop is just a typical spoiled a-hole who should have been spanked as a child.
The worst part is that it's not just Love Live fans that are guilty of this kind of behaviour. I've noticed (and been on the receiving end of) shocking levels of toxic behaviour from fans of Sword Art Online, Shakugan no Shana, Shingeki no Kyojin, Naruto, Dragon Ball, Fairy Tail, Bleach, One Piece and RWBY, amongst several other franchises. To be honest, I don't like labelling them as fans. "Fanatics" would be more accurate, and their behaviour can be quite disgusting. At the mild end of the spectrum is verbal abuse of "casual fans" as well as non-fans. At the extreme end of the spectrum is discrimination, threats of kidnapping and rape, and even death threats. This kind of behaviour is not acceptable. Ever.
It really does sadden me to hear that an official warning was necessary. Even more so to hear that this is the fourth warning. Evidently the fanatics aren't listening. And as one commenter in the article pointed out: it's not fair that the well-behaved fans should share in the punishments that are being triggered by the actions of those crazed fans.
theeastisred
If there's one action I really can't accept it's somebody stamping around in a pile of leaflets. Young people today!
Red suns
Make the seiyuus issue a statement in character, if they say that this behavior makes them sad, the rabid otakus could be tamed into submission. The Chinese are another problem though...
https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveLive/comments/7sstal/analysis_about_what_happened_to_the_chinese/
Michael Craig
All the bad jerkoff Love Livers that should be given a spanking!
gogogo
Some serious weird stuff. Perhaps they should just ban this child image exploitation totally?
Fox Sora Winters
@gogogo That won't solve the problem even in the slightest bit. As I pointed out, it's not just fans of Love Live who are guilty of this kind of behaviour. Banning the series will only hurt the innocent, well-behaved fans, while the jerks will move to another franchise and cause havoc for that instead.
It's the bad fans that need to be dealt with, not the franchise. The existence of sane, mature fans stands as evidence that the franchise isn't to blame for how the bad fans turned out.
DimwittedAmerican
Goes to show that it takes one person ruin everything at least they don't have guns.
DimwittedAmerican
@theeastisred Try going to the malls in America on Black Friday when department stores have massive sales in middle night and it's every man and woman for himself.