Is this really the story of love live ? I'm too busy to watch the anime -.-
There are effectively four separate "universes" for Love Live: the anime, the manga, the School Idol Diaries, and School Idol Festival. All the characters are the same in each, and many details are largely the same, but there are some significant differences... primarily because you're talking different authors and the like.
For example, in the manga, Eli knew Honoka, Umi and Kotori as children - and there's also a yuri goggles-level love triangle going on with Eli and Umi and Honoka (and I think possibly Nozomi as well). Nico and Maki become friends early on as they seek to scout out potential school idols.
Meanwhile, in the anime, Eli and Nozomi met up in their 1st year and are best friends (/girlfriends, depending on your goggles level) but didn't know the others (except Nico) until Honoka was trying to make an idol group, Eli resisted joining μ’s, etc. And NicoMaki are quite different to their manga equivalents in personality.
SIF and the SIDs tend to be very close or the same (particularly as of late) but there can be some differences between the diaries and the other media. For example, in Nico's SID she only has two siblings - Cocoro and Cocoa, her little sisters. But in the anime and in SIF she also has a little brother, Cotarou.
So... Yeah. Love Live is flexible. :P
Wow ! Now I know where the shipping come from :D I ship nicomaki so much btw ! <3 I'll start with this one first then I'll try to watch all of the other versions :)