Love Live! Sunshine!! and Numazu

For fans of the wildly popular anime Love Live! Sunshine!!, Numazu in Shizuoka Prefecture, which serves as the backdrop for the story, is a popular "pilgrimage" destination. As we've reported before, the city has wholeheartedly embraced the anime, with signs and posters decorating the streets and shopping arcades, store fronts proudly selling and displaying posters, figures, apparel and even their own original collaboration goods, even an anime-themed rental car, pancake shops partly inspired by the anime, not to mention trains, local buses and even the local ferry to Awashima Marine Park decorated in the likeness of the nine girls.

With the January 2019 release of the series' first full-length film Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow on the horizon, the level of promotion and support for the anime was even stronger than usual when we stopped by Numazu last month.

At the Surugawan Numazu Service Area on our approach to Numazu from the Shin-Tomei Expressway, we even found the Love Live! Sunshine!! floats which participated in various Nebuta Festivals since the summer of 2017.

As we drove into downtown Numazu, we caught up with a public bus featuring all nine girls dressed in detective outfits as part of a promotion for an escape game held in collaboration with the Awashima Marine Park last summer.

Since the New Year was just around the corner, this jewelry shop storefront not only had a tapestry with signatures from each of the voice actresses but also a special message congratulating Aqours for their upcoming appearance in the year-end Kohaku Utagassen singing contest on NHK and a cute display of kimono clad dolls in the likeness of the nine girls.

The Nakamise Shopping Arcade and Shin-Nakamise Shopping Arcades at the heart of downtown Numazu were practically overflowing with Love Live! Sunshine!! representation. This poster boldly says: "Welcome to Nakamise!"

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Official City Support

The City of Numazu itself is also fully behind the promotion activities. The tourism information website has a promotional video narrated by Chika Takami (VA: Anju Inami), and the rotating banner image for the city government's website displays nine different congratulations messages on each of the girls' birthdays.

For example, here's the message for Dia's birthday on Jan. 1, 2019, as tweeted by the city's official account:

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Love Live! Sunshine!! Manhole Project

Numazu has even gone as far as leaving a quasi-permanent mark on its very streets just to celebrate and promote the anime, by decorating manholes in key locations with Love Live! Sunshine!! themed covers.

The manhole cover project was made possible through a crowdfunding campaign which launched in early 2018 and initially resulted in 9 original manhole cover designs, one for each of the nine girls. New covers were later added featuring a group image and the emblem of the Uranohoshi Girl's High School. Although vandals defaced some of them, replacement covers were installed in October.

Today, touring the Love Live! Sunshine!! manhole covers ranks very highly on fans' list of things to do during their pilgrimages to the city.

Since our grape Japan staff on duty during our trip to Shizuoka was somewhat of a fan himself, he set about looking for them as soon as we arrived.

You can obtain a map showing the location of each manhole from the Information Desk at Numazu Station, or if you'd like to plan in advance, you can print it the map here.

Numazu Station

We began our tour at Numazu Station.

Chika

Chika's cover is just south of the station entrance as you head towards the Nakamise Shopping arcade.

Numazu Station

A cute neon sign near the station

North of Numazu Station

There are three manhole covers north of Numazu Station, beginning with Hanamaru.

Hanamaru

Hanamaru also has a color version inside the Nakamise Shopping Arcade.

Riko

Appropriately enough, Riko's cover is located on Riko Street (Riko Dori)!

Kanan

Walk a few more blocks north and you'll find Kanan's cover.

Along the way, on the left side, you can't miss the entrance to Ishibashi Plaza with this attractive Love Live! Sunshine!! decoration on it.

Nakamise Shopping Arcade

Most of the manhole covers are inside the Nakamise and Shin Nakamise Shopping Arcades.

Mari

Hanamaru

Photo by ©frameoftravel

Ruby

Yoshiko

There's also a black and white version south of the shopping arcade.

Uranohoshi Girls' High School Emblem

All Members

South of the Nakamise Shopping Arcade

Once you exit the shopping arcades, head towards the harbor.

Yoshiko

This black and white version of Yoshiko is near Suruga Bank just south of the shopping arcades.

Dia

Finding Dia is quite a challenge since her cover is inside Senbonhama Park.

If you can find the slide at the playground area, you'll know you're close.

You

Midway along the road connecting the arcades to the harbor, we arrived at You's cover. Rainwater remaining from a brief downfall the previous day made the surface shimmer with the rays of the early afternoon sun. Very appropriate for a girl whose name means "shining."

Ruby

Ruby's cover is just outside the Numazu Harbor restaurant area.

Since we hadn't eaten yet, we opted for a late lunch at Numazu Burger, a Love Live! Sunshine!! favorite, especially for fans of a certain "fallen angel."

(Stay tuned for our report on Numazu Burger, which offers the tastiest seafood burgers in the Kanto area, next week.)

Uchiura

Although it's not listed in the city's official guide, and reviews (such as this recent one in Gigazine) may not mention it, there's actually an additional manhole cover in the Uchiura area of Numazu City, which is where most of the action in the series takes place.

Uranohoshi Girls' High School Emblem

And here it is. Since there's a color version in the Nakamise Shopping Arcade, you may think it's not worth the trouble to see this black and white version if you have no plans to go to Uchiura, but if a visit to Uchiura is on your itinerary, then it's surely worth noticing. We were unable to go this time, so we asked our friend Yutaka to take these pictures for us:

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Our quest to find all the Love Live! Sunshine!! manholes complete, we headed back in the direction of Numazu Station, as Mount Fuji towered majestically above the clouds on a beautiful azure backdrop.

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We'd like to thank @frameoftravel for collaboration on the photography and Yutaka Yanagida for his assistance with this report.