By far the most popular series today among Japan’s ultra-hardcore anime fans is Love Live. With a bevy of cute girls, pleated skirts, pop idol competitions, and nary a prominent male character, it’s checked off enough of the necessary boxes to give it a solid pedestal on which its charismatic cast has been placed.
Fans of Love Live even have their own nickname, as it has become common to refer to them as Love Livers. Yes, grammatically that makes no sense, but you can’t expect the franchise’s fan base to stop and correct the odd nomenclature. They’re too busy celebrating the birthdays of Love Live’s dozen-plus idol singers by buying merchandise, sending online salutations, and, in the case of one fan, getting a giant tattoo of his favorite character that covers his entire – and we mean entire – back…
According to her official profile, June 9 is the birthday of Love Live character Nozomi Tojo. Whether it’s because of her helpful nature, girlish pigtails, or propensity for grabbing her fellow idols’ chests, for one man in Hong Kong, Twitter user @qooalex83, Nozomi stood out amongst Love Live’s crowded cast.
▼ There are probably two more reasons we could add to the above list.
🗺️ WW #LLSIF Nozomi SSR available for scouting! 🌼
— LoveLive! School Idol Tomodachi (Sukutomo 友) (@schoolidolu) August 28, 2019
She is a Cool Scorer! See the rest of the card stats here → https://t.co/7TXWDBcGXH pic.twitter.com/FcbkO98nwD
To show his devotion, the fan uploaded the following picture of himself on her birthday.
【香港ラブライバーがコワイよ】 昨日希ちゃん誕生日に、生涯希推しということでタトゥーを入れた猛者が出現www (完成度30%、色塗り待ちだそうだ) #lovelive #ラブライブ pic.twitter.com/wuxhFikS9P
— ひろ@CG (@qooalex83) June 9, 2014
According to the Love Liver/canvas, he’s only about 30 percent of the way through the tattooing process, as can be seen from the general lack of color compared to the anime’s artwork.
At first, we thought this might have been a hoax, with the linework done with a plain old magic marker that’ll fade away in a few days. On the shelves @qooalex83 is facing, though, we can see a number of bottles of what appear to be Eternal Ink, a genuine brand of tattoo ink sold through Eternal Tattoo Supply in Michigan.
While some Japanese online commentators were impressed with the man’s passion, others worried about the possible lack of perception in his choice to permanently mark himself over a show that just began airing a year ago.
“Yup, he’s an idiot.”
“He’s going to regret this once he gets tired of the series.”
“And that’ll be pretty soon.”
“He’s gotta live with it now.”
We can’t help thinking he should have taken our reporter’s advice before getting ink done, but so long as Nozomi herself appreciates the gesture, right??
Source: Twiter/@qooalex83 via Hamster Sokuho

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