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August in Japan is the month of summer concerts, from the internationally celebrated Summer Sonic series, to record label Avex Trax’s annual A-Nation festival. Of course, let’s not forget to mention the Animelo Summer Live series, known popularly as Anisama (an abbreviation of anime and the Japanese pronunciation of “summer”) by Japanese fans of anime songs.

This year’s opening day of the concert series saw an unusual display of love for hit anime series Love Live! in the form of a group of guys dressing up like old-school Japanese biker gang delinquents, complete with long coats depicting their favorite characters. However, it looks like a number of Japanese Twitter users are ready for the Love Livers to tone their passion down a notch, as the online critics were decidedly unimpressed with the outfits.

This year’s Anisama series titled “Animelo Summer Live 2015 -The Gate-“ is a continuation of a popular summer concert tradition which began back in 2005 as a way to bring together fans of anime songs, a genre of music in its own right in Japan, and the popular anime song artists and voice actors of the day. It is now the biggest annual concert series dedicated to anime theme songs in Japan.

▼ The lineup of vocalists for Day One of this year’s concert series (Friday, August 28)

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The three-day event is being held on August 28, 29, and 30 of this year at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama City. As of this writing, the first day has already concluded, and Japanese Twitter users have rushed to post pictures of an unusual sight they saw prior to the start of the live—a group of seemingly “intimidating” Love Live! male fans posing to honor their favorite anime singing heroines and dressed in a style reminiscent of bosozuku biker gang members:

https://twitter.com/H1r0suK/status/637123974288183296 https://twitter.com/hsngcaffelatte/status/637124849047961600 https://twitter.com/hakoruu/status/637131070475907072

Despite the obvious time and effort that it must have taken the fans to make those outfits, Japanese net users were largely unimpressed by the pictures:

“They’ve gotta be dying in the heat.”

“I wish all the Love Live! and Momoiro Clover Z fans would just leave Anisama already.”

“Junior high school students would probably look up to them.”

“They just keep tarnishing the good name of Love Live!” → “Uhh, the fandom has already reached the pits.”

“They remind me of my hometown, LOL.”

“These guys have shown up before concerts before but this time there are many other non Love Live! singers in attendance, so they should tone it down a bit.”

Perhaps it’s time for the diehard Love Livers to give it a rest? Then again, if they can’t show their love of the show and its music at this kind of event, where can they can?

Source: My Game News Flash
Featured image: Twitter/@hsngcaffelatte
Insert image: Animelo Summer Live 2015