How School Idol Festival changed My Life

Love Live taught me the definition of the word “obsession”.  Prior to Love Live, I would always scoff at the people zealously following Kpop groups, AKB48, and anything else worth obsessing over.  They would watch talk shows, live concerts, follow twitters, and anything else just to interact with that group.  Looking at myself now with Love Live, I am exactly the same as them, watching Niconamas, attend delayed viewings, travel, and watch anything that has English subtitles just to stay connected with the voice actors. Over a span of 4 years, Love Live, to me, has evolved from “just another anime” to something I can call a big part of my life and personality.

	Love Live was an anime that I watched very early in my anime/otaku life.  My friend recommended me by saying “it’s cute girls doing cute things.”  I decided to watch it and really enjoyed it.  After finishing the show, I was introduced to SIF, but was unable to play it due to the old phone that I was using at that time.  For about 8 months, Love Live was merely just another anime that I could throw onto my myanimelist and say I watched it.  It wasn’t until I was able to play School Idol Festival that I spiraled into the common territory of “Idol Hell” and the birth of my obsession.  This obsession was not a fruitless obsession; SIF has helped me mature into the person I am today.

	Despite the common connotation that games are a waste of time and don’t teach any valuable lessons, Love Live SIF taught me many valuable life lessons.  The most valuable lesson that SIF has taught me is the art of financial planning.  When I first began playing SIF, 50 gems meant “time to roll”, regardless of the featured UR; this led to repeated disappointments and single SR pulls of unfavorable cards.  Eventually, the resolve to change my habits began.  I started playing JP to plan out my Worldwide main account, played BanG Dream, Fire Emblem Heroes and other gatchapons to satisfy my hunger for impulsive rolling.  I would start saying things like “If I want to roll 4 times for China Dress Kotori, how many impulse 10+1 rolls can I do?”  Initially, I would typically have the will power to save up to 100, then eventually 150, then peaked at 350 gems (Plus 2 10+1 tickets) for Dancer Kotori (I never got Dancer Kotori and my real life friends call November 4, 2016 “The Dancer Birb Tragedy”).  Ironically, the Extra Live stream this year is the one year anniversary for that.  Unfortunately, despite all this planning, I have never obtained the featured URs that I plan to get, but my scouting sprees have made me happier and the temptation of scouting is always suppressible.

	This kind of mindset is not something that just applied to School Idol Festival, but also impacted my life greatly.  Like many other college students, there seemed to be limitless expenses but no source of steady income.  “If I want to scout Christmas You 5 times, how many impulse rolls can I do” translated into my real life in the form of “if I want to pay back my student loans in 6 months, how much would I need to save each month to achieve that?”  This kind of thinking is what helped me do spectacular things.  Learning to resist the temptation to impulsively buy things led to being able to spend money on impactful things.  I managed to go to Japan and perform the SIP and Sunshine pilgrimages, attended both delayed live viewings in Virginia, start a figurine collection and nesoberis, and have “happy” money to spend on SIF (I’m a dolphin). Aside from Love Live related things, I’m healthily paying my loans back, have a lot of emergency money, and have plans to travel.  This is how the Love Live franchise and School Idol Festival has impacted my life.