WOahwoahwoahwoahwoah. Slow down there. Honoka is not unpopular. People love her because she is just a natural leader, and no one can be credited for u's except for her. She is impassioned and goofy. I don't think we can call someone who started up a club that involves ridiculous amounts of physical activity and training "lazy".

Plus 'getting forced onto Tsubasa'...no one's forcing that ship. It just feels awesome the idea that the two leaders of the most popular idol groups find inspiration in each other and fall in love through the process of going through that.

@ColonalCat
She's unpopular, not in the red zone, but her personality is not something that people can stomach all the time, or sometimes people think it's "just your generic genki girl"

"Getting forced onto Tsubasa" though, is really one of the common practice with KotoUmi works. The moment artist tries to pair the whole µ's members into 2-person relationship, Honoka will be always the one that get kicked out from the pairing.
The idea of HonoTsuba is quite interesting, despite being lacking, and I actually enjoy reading HonoTsuba books, but definitely not the one where Honoka get pushed away for the sake of pairing Kotori with Umi.

Imagine if it was Umi, instead of Honoka.
The KotoUmi fans reaction to those was rather bad, and yet pairing Honoka/treating her as leftover for anyone else was a fair thing to do? Yeah... no.

Sometimes I wonder why a pairing has to be definite. I guess lots of people don't like it one sided huh, or perhaps two people (or more) liking the same person.

I read this argument very often... and I can't possibly agree.
The HonoKoto scene at the airport... the fact that Honoka was the one who stopped Kotori from leaving, "The only person who could get Kotori to stay was Honoka" is NOT because Honoka has feelings for her or Kotori stayed ONLY cuz Honoka asked so... Of course, Honoka is the main character who else in the world would do that work?? If Eli, Nico, or Maki were the main charecter then one of them would have been the one who stopped Kotori...

I think Umi didn't stop Kotori because, unlike Honoka, she's not selfish, she couldn't ask her that... and btw, the one that makes Honoka go to the airport to stop Kotori is clearly Umi... so, please, don't say "there were no moments in the anime where Kotori and Umi showed anything more than the love between good friends"

@Adri_VolKatina
Honoka was the least person that want to be separated from anyone else, notably Kotori and Umi.
It's not because Honoka is the main character. I hope you're not forgetting that before Umi, Honoka's closest childhood friend is Kotori. Has it been someone else, she wouldn't be getting a major breakdown in S1 Ep12.

That day, on Kotori's flight, Honoka intended to talk with Kotori and Umi on the auditorium, but turns out Kotori has left for her flight.

Feelings wise, it's hard to argue about "feelings." Romance based feelings are no-go for the official works. Any other type of feelings? Friendship? It's there.
Kotori did stay partially because Honoka wished so.
Previously, she wanted to learn to be as designer, that is pre µ's.
What she wanted now is to stay with Honoka and Umi as idols, µ's, but she didn't know what to do, nor she had the courage to make decision.
What she wished was someone to tell her to stay, and that's where Honoka play the role. (But if you want to incorporate romance-tier feeling, that's where it kicks in here. Kotori -> Honoka. Otherwise, let's say no romance happened on the series)

Umi, as childhood friend, could probably wish the same as Honoka, wanting Kotori to stay with them. She did indirectly try to stop her from studying aboard, with a lighter implication. "It can't be helped." At that point, regardless what she does, it would be meaningless
Nevertheless Umi is still a close friend with Kotori, and so does the other two, but for the anime, she's more of a supportive character, just for this whole airport scenes.

Yuri implication? Unlike other pairings, they're close as they are already, and most likely wont be as apparent as other pairings. If you want something that ties both of them together, it's season 2 first few episode.
"Regardless what Honoka choose, Kotori is willing to follow her decision" - Anime, first three episode (Kotori -> Honoka, which somewhat is similar to Umi -> Honoka on her SID)

I could imagine Love Live becoming the centre of ruthless pairing wars between opposition fandoms...There are good arguments for either one out of KotoUmi, HonoUmi and HonoKoto. In fact there is no pairing that doesn't have a solid argument against it.

I thought it already is.

Why do I have a feeling some of us are getting somewhat sidetracked.

last edited at Apr 3, 2015 12:02AM

Not much a fan on this artist work, but that page 4 sure piqued my curiosity, the term fertilized and unfertilized egg... Its most likely refers to Kotori's 'feelings' (There's no way to differentiate both though, unless artist hinted it. Visually you'd assume it's either unfertilized or just plain egg drawing w/o implications)

This is where I totally question whether Kotori wants to be with Umi, or it's more of "feeling bad/guilty to leave Umi for Honoka." Seemed like one page hinted that, and the other pages hinted otherwise.

OT3 is somewhat complex... Being jealous, wanting more attention from Kotori over another, and eventually wanting to keep Kotori for herself.
The tag certainly works, not with this kind of setting though.

Looking forward for a continuation, I guess?

If you ask anyone why the other µ’s member stepped back, I don’t think anyone would have an answer for that.
If you’re seeing this romantically, or as something special, then it is a strong subtext. It is implied that it can be a strong subtext, but it doesn’t necessarily be one.
As for why the private moment, I believe it’s just the theme that Kimino picked/decided to go with. You can say the same for the NozoPana and NozoHono that most people already seen (and NozoHono is more misleadingly yuri-tier in context)
Special relationships in anime/manga between Rin and Nozomi are not apparent enough. They’re more apparent on audio drama where both of them are actually close and always play the tsukkomi-boke roles, aka making puns. So if you ask me, they’re actually quite close. The only question now, which LL-verse does that audio drama belong to.
To be fair though, all these pairing business are more of something that has yet to be developed. If there’s one pairing that suddenly pops out and it’s an odd pairing, see it as something that has yet to be developed. That is however, depends on how deep the context be (As how popular it is, it’ll depends on how many people would hype the pairing, really.)
One thing that should be remembered all the time, SID doesn’t necessarily make story based on pairing, rather than, it revolves around character development, and this one is just a tiny clip of it.
This one chapter doesn’t breathe much yuri. It didn’t reach that high enough to be one. Being paired together for private moment alone is not good enough. P 16/18/20/23 may implies those, but, it’s more of a “Good friend” relationship and “On spur of moment admiration – P.23” rather than yuri. It may become a good material in the future, but as for now, I don’t see anything that stimulates that yuri-excitement.
Speaking of yuri implication, the game (especially those side stories and Ch 27 valentine) and audio drama reeks of yuri more than anything. Dengeki G’s issues are baits of baits.
If OT9 doesn’t work in your eyes, then it’s just the way it is. Everyone has their own preference, right?

OT9 is just one big family. No yuri implied, or even if there is, it's minimal. (Or you can really say it that's SID manga currently looks like)

If memory recalls correctly, NozoRin pairing is more based on Audio drama, but that aside I don't think it'd be as popular as current hyped pairing. If anything, it'd go as far as where KotoMaki/UmiRin/HonoNico sits. (the cuts pairing)
Creating a story about it going to be painfully hard as well, that is unless people decided to hype NozoRin pairing....
Considering all the NozoEli/NozoNico and RinPana/RinMaki pairing.... I wonder...

Second last panel is somewhat adorb.

@Rye, naturally, I would expect she to be that shy, but not covering her face (Expecting her to go with "ehehe" as usual)
This is just adorableee

I'm definitely reading this as yuri eventhough it's not.

God dang it gender confusion

Howcanboyslooksogirly.

last edited at Mar 23, 2015 11:25PM

＾

Trying to make this as short as possible
HonoTsuba definitely is a sensible pair, which is undeniably cute due to her rivalry and being leader, but there’s just one thing I can never agree with. Pairing her with Tsubasa for the sake of KotoUmi, which honestly makes HonoTsuba less nice/making the ship, seems forced. (Thank god there’s some work that actually appreciate HonoTsuba in a good way that is not pushing Honoka away). What’s worse that there’s no actual development around A-RISE, which made it even worse.

So by this, these people (actually most people that support KotoUmi, even on JP Blogs, tweets and such) would be fine to treat Honoka as thirdwheel, and/or push her away for the sake of KotoUmi, yet don’t like it when people do KotoHono and push Umi aside as side character?

Nice bias, preference be preference, there’s tag for everything. Like whichever pairing you like, be it KotoMaki or NozoHono, or anything, but at least damn appreciate other pairings.

(To be fair, it's really easy to point out flaws on each other pairings that has less canon materials, especially those that's not heavily supported enough, but due to respect to every other pairings and fans love to certain pairings I'd refrain myself from doing so, but really, too much bias is just nasty)

And yes, some of the storyline in LLSIF even suggested polygamous relationship. At one point, I recall some fanarts trying to make 3 3-way triangle relationships

last edited at Mar 23, 2015 11:17PM

＾ Pretty much expected right?
If that happens though, I should expect people going by "Goddamnit Honoka stop being the third wheel" or something like that on 2ch (or pre-much everywhere) '~'
Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to the issue.

We might get some NozoRin pretty soon

http://bato.to/read/_/311830/love-live-school-idol-diary_ch7_by_pudding-heart

It seems to me that this author put so much pairing in his manga that it just destroy them all... they are just all friend, there are no other option. Well that's the official thing and it's not yuri, that was to be expected... but still...

I know this has been long covered in LLSIF a while ago, but seeing the actual art is way more... soothing?

and you know that people make books based on whichever they like, not necessarily based on what official go with, that is if you're referring/assuming that we're going to see lots of NozoRin doujin. (I have lots of examples for that, but I don't intend to make a wall, so I shall pass on writing that)

Kimino does probably intend to pair everyone, although the most apparent so far is HonoEli/HonoUmi/HonoKoto + the jealous Umi, while some of them didn't leave much impact.

It's always better to think µ's as OT9 or OT9/3.
There's no official yuri pairing (yet), that's one thing for sure.

If anything counts, the next Dengeki G's comi smells like KotoUmi but I'd bet that the content doesn't go as far as what people expect, seeing how Kimino does LOVE to mislead sometimes.

......again? Not yuri? I don't even understand how this isn't yuri this time around.

This comes from middle school days, isn't it? I like the idea of this being a long-developed, long-standing romantic sort.

To be fair, some of the books aren't well-tagged...

That credit page Umi looks cool though

To be fair, I looked on all recent comments, comparing in both KotoUmi books and KotoHono books, and some of you sure love to be biased.

Whenever Honoka get third wheel'd, it's fine, because you people think there's HonoBasa to fill that gap, which in short is pretty much as worse as kicking her out of µ's group. (While HonoBasa is cute, I don't like the fact that most of HonoBasa works is an act to pair KotoUmi)

Even if HonoBasa wasn't around, Honoka still get that third-wheel treatment and it'll still be fine

And now, this is KotoHono works, not KotoHonoUmi, which obviously Umi would either remain as support character or being left out.

I personally find it's fair for people to have their own preference on which pairing they like, regardless how unpopular or sensible the pairing be, but being way too damn biased for the sake of favoring your own personal pairing is just sad.

In short, whoever that always read KotoUmi books, especially those who has the works that's not even uploaded here ought to realize that most KotoUmi works thirdwheeled Honoka.
Most KotoHono books will always put Umi as supportive character, and this is why OT3 is the best way to work around with them, just them.

Are you guys really calling this yuri?? O_o

Supposedly it wouldn't count as one, yet.

But three of them really fits together ♪

Way too adorable, though the tag would've been appropriate for Tsubasa x µ's, seeing Honoka isn't the only one she adores, but µ's as whole.

The encore at the end is really golden.