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When Love Live! is your life, it’s hard to feel more alive than this.

Although Tokyo’s Ikebukuro neighborhood isn’t as thoroughly otaku-centric as Akihabara, it’s becoming an increasingly popular location for anime-themed shops, restaurants, and events. Last weekend, Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City, a large shopping, dining, and entertainment complex, hosted SchoFes Kanshasai 2016, a fan-appreciation event for players of the Love Live! School Idol Festival mobile game, itself based on the smash hit teen idol anime franchise Love Live!

Love Live! has become such a cultural phenomenon that it’s now just as famous for its hard-core fans, called the Love Livers, as it is for the content of the series itself. The Love Livers were out in full force at the SchoFes Kanshasai, and while most of the events were took place in Sunshine City’s conference halls, some of the festivities were held in the attached shopping center’s atrium fountain area. With Love Live! music playing, Love Livers packed the area and gave a startlingly powerful demonstration of the passion and participative spirit that defines modern Japanese idol fandom.

Again, this unabashed display of Love Live! love didn’t happen in a closed-off convention space, but in the open-to-the-general-public shopping mall, Look closely, and behind the rows of fans you’ll spot regular, non-otaku shoppers going about their business, even as things like this are happening.

https://twitter.com/etha_nol0803/status/734276483246497792

But while the event organizers were no doubt happy to see fans around the atrium enjoying themselves so much, they probably would have preferred these overzealous ones not stage an impromptu rally in the middle of the regular walkway.

https://twitter.com/superrainbowex1/status/734307527169433600

But sometimes, fans feel there are messages important enough to stop pedestrian traffic for, such as “Dededededede!”

Follow Casey on Twitter. Oh, and also dededededede!

Source: Jin
Top image: Twitter/@LL_t_rinrin1101