@DY4Y: I'm kind of the opposite of you - I actually came to watch Love Live to get a better feel for the ships I was seeing in doujins. As much as I love the original anime and characters, I feel like there was so much value added from the doujin community because the one thing the anime didn't give us was a lot about specific character relationships outside of the general second-year trio friendship and the occasional momentary wink-wink to NicoMaki.
I don't see shipping as detracting from individual character development (although I would agree we could use some more back-story on Keke), but rather as enriching it. In fact that might be what makes SumiKeke feel "forced" to some, because their individual personalities are strongly developed enough to see how much they clash (which is also why the ship seems interesting).
@FluffyCow: You make a valid point in general, but I don't think that's what's at work here. Because one of the real head-scratching things about Super Star - not that it's a bad thing - is the almost complete lack of hetero hentai for it.
I've never liked hetero stuff with anonymous males, which is pretty much all you'll get for a franchise that weirdly goes out of its way to never show a male character. But with the earlier Love Lives, before I discovered Dynasty Scans, I was accustomed to having to wade through a ton of it in order to find the GG stories. So you're right that Yuri unfortunately gets less attention than straight or yaoi stuff, but with Super Star the scarcity is across the board.
last edited at Dec 16, 2022 3:48AM