Love Live!’s μ’s Return for a New Single

On Wednesday, August 21st, during a livestream regarding the upcoming ninth anniversary of the Love Live! franchise, fans were treated to the surprise announcement that idol group μ’s would be releasing a new single and music video. Love Live! is a franchise revolving around the story of a group of nine girls who form a group of “school idols” called μ’s (pronounced “muse”) in order to save their school from closure. The franchise, which features both an anime and live shows performed by the voice actors in character, was highly successful and enjoyed massive popularity. After the release of the Love Live! movie in theaters, which featured μ’s coming to an end and moving on after one final concert, their real-life counterparts followed suit and disbanded after their final performance at the Tokyo Dome on March 31st, 2016. The Love Live! franchise has since moved on to a second anime series called Love Live! Sunshine, which features a new school idol group called Aquors and canonically takes place after the events of the first anime.

The news exploded among Love Live! fans with great fervor, evident by the hashtags “#lovelive” and “#μ’s新曲” (μ’s new song) trending on Twitter worldwide for most of the day after the announcement. It was expected that μ’s would not be releasing new songs after their disbanding and its members would be moving on with their individual solo careers. Up until the livestream announcement, the most new content that was related to μ’s came from the voice actors making cameo appearances during promotional streams. However, it was announced during Tokyo Game Show 2017 that an upcoming mobile game called Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS would feature μ’s, their successors Aquors, and a new third generation of school idols under the name Perfect Dream Project.

With the release date for ALL STARS being revealed in September, it most likely means μ’s new upcoming single is going to either be part of the promotion for the mobile game or be a featured song in it. It seems unlikely for μ’s to receive a new anime or for their real-life counterparts to reunite. That would lessen the massive emotional impact that was evoked during their final live show as well as the main theme of the Love Live! movie. As consolation for μ’s fans whose hopes for a reunion might be dashed, it was announced that the story of ALL STARS would take place in an alternate timeline where μ’s, Aquors and the Perfect Dream Project girls would be active at the same time. This also means that not only are all of the voice actresses returning to lend their voices to the game, but also every idol will have new interactions and new stories with idols from each generation of the Love Live! franchise — a limitless source of potential fanservice.

In addition to the new single, the livestream also announced the “μ’s Memorial CD Box” — a collection of CDs to be released on December 25th, 2019, that will feature every μ’s song ever released. The stream also announced a ninth anniversary version Blu-ray box for the Love Live! anime. It features all the episodes of the anime as well as footage from two of μ’s’ live concerts and is to released on October 25th, 2019. For μ’s fans who missed the iconic idols, this is the perfect way to reconnect with the songs that made them who they are before seeing them again in ALL STARTS and hearing their new single.