If you follow or accidentally brush up on some J3 league, which is Japan's third-tier league, there is a high probability that you will find that one of the teams has a different style.
Their fan buses to the stadium sometimes look like this.
The welcome sign entering the stadium is the same style.
Some of the fans in the stands raised or waved the same flag, and the cheering songs sung by the chorus also had a two-dimensional flavor.
You read that right, this is really a Japanese professional football club with the name Numazu Aoran.
Unlike other J-League clubs, they often only have business cooperation, and they have some long-term and deep ties with two-dimensional idols. Even last year, when facing the crisis of being expelled from the J-League because the stadium lighting was not up to the requirements, it was the fans of this idol group who pulled a hand at a critical moment.
Today, let's walk into this crossover story of football and two-dimensional idols.
Excellent youth training, lying flat career
Numazu City is located in Shizuoka Prefecture, which is known by many as the "home of Japanese football".
For example, the main stage in the early stage of "Soccer Boy" is the fictional city of Nange in Shizuoka Prefecture, and the realistic prototype of the protagonist Oku Tsubasa is Mizushima Musashi, who was born in Tokyo and came to Shizuoka to attend elementary school in order to play football.
For example, many of the famous champions of the Japanese high school football tournament come from Shizuoka. In 2019, two high school teams from Shizuoka, Shizuoka Gakuen and Shunshin Fujieda, won the men's and women's national championships, respectively. Senior Miura Chira came to the Shizuoka Gakuen dressing room during the competition to cheer on his juniors, and later paid for the entire cost of his alma mater's championship trip.
For example, Shizuoka is the prefecture that has contributed the most international players to the Japanese national team, and from here in addition to Miura Chira, there are Masashi Nakayama, Noh Kawaguchi, Shinji Ono, Hiroshi Naba, Naoyasu Takahara, Atsushito Uchida, Makoto Hasebe and others. The Shizuoka special of the Japanese soccer magazine reads "football kingdom" directly on the cover, and there is not much opinion elsewhere.
However, no matter how good the foundation is, it can only take care of youth training. With a population of just over 3 million, Shizuoka Prefecture's two major cities, Shizuoka and Hamamatsu, are far behind in terms of commercial scale and popularity, not to mention Tokyo not far away, and even nearby Yokohama and Nagoya.
As a result, excellent soccer seedlings germinate and grow in Shizuoka, and most of them have to go outside when they want to blossom and bear fruit. The Shizuoka Pro Club that has appeared in our field of vision over the years may only be Shimizu Heartbeat and Iwata Joy, and further down is today's protagonist, Numazu Aorama.
The club was founded in 1990 and changed its current name to its current name in 2006: アスルクラロNumazu. The kana is derived from the Spanish word AzulClaro, meaning cyan blue.
Just like the overall style of Shizuoka football, Numazu Blue has a good youth training strength and a small economic base. In 2016 they finished second in the Japan Football League (JFL, Division 4), but Numazu was able to qualify for the professional league after another Shizuoka team, Honda FC, refused to make the neutral switch.
Then, I stayed in J3, not sad or happy.
Youth training has always been at the heart of Shizuoka football, and Numazu is no exception
A few years ago, they were close to upgrading, but because the hardware facilities did not meet the entry threshold of J2, it was useless to be at the top of the league. In the past few years, they began to enter the training mode of promoting newcomers→ selling to high-level teams→ and then promoting newcomers, basically not caring much about results, after all, J3 was still in the process of expansion, and there was no relegation at that time.
To put it nicely, this is called being at ease with encounters. To put it mildly, some people complain that this is called rotten.
But this sage model encountered a huge challenge at the end of 2021. The J-League has revised its entry rules to require J3 clubs to have at least 1,500 lux of illumination at their home stadium, while the Eagle Wide Park Arena used by Numazu Blue has only 500 lux. If you can't solve this problem in 2022, you will be expelled from the J-League and go back to play semi-professional with old friend Honda FC.
This kind of renovation seems simple, but it is not easy for Numazu Aorama. At first, as the owner of the course, the Numazu City Government was not very enthusiastic about the renovation. Then, the club offered to pay for the lighting themselves, but a flip of the calculator revealed a figure that was unbearable for them – 100 million yen.
What to do? Like many similar things throughout the ages, Numazu Blue launched a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of 30 million yen in February 2022. Donate a certain amount to get a commemorative t-shirt and home ticket, as well as participate in player interactions.
A month later, however, progress was not ideal. The distressed club began to think of other ways and soon remembered that they had once had a crossover partner.
《LoveLive! Sunshine!! 》
Become an idol!
Speaking of which, Numazu City is not as economic, but it is beautiful. Suruga Bay on the Izu Peninsula, as well as the extinct volcano of Aitaka, are not too far from the famous Hakone and Mount Fuji. Therefore, it also often becomes a filming location for film and television works.
For example, in the movie "Sea Street Diary", the "cherry blossom tunnel" that many people yearn for is not in Kamakura, where the story takes place, but in the Aitaka Wide Park, where the main place of Numazu Blue is located.
Another example is the aforementioned "LoveLive! Sunshine!! 》。
"LoveLive!" is a large-scale crossover project that began in 2010. There are anime, manga, light novels, and mobile sound games in the second dimension, as well as the voice actors of the nine main characters who form an idol group μ's (muse) releases singles, holds general selections, and holds concerts in the third dimension. Especially after the broadcast of TV animation in 2013, the popularity at home and abroad has exploded unprecedentedly, LL, Lala people, Nicole Nicole out of the circle has become hot words, Shanghai and Chongqing metros have appeared "pain cars" to promote audio games.
Launched in 2015, LoveLive! Sunshine!! is the second copyright of this project. The outline of the story is similar to the first issue, nine beautiful girls in order to stop the school from being abandoned, they decide... Become an idol!
This time, the school idol group is called Aqours, which consists of aqua (water) and ours (us), so it is called "water group" in China, and the fan group is called "water water people".
The story takes place in the fictional Uranoshi Women's Academy, but the interior and exterior of the school and the surrounding scenery have a very similar real-life prototype: Numazu City Nagaizaki Junior High School.
As a result, Numazu City, as the origin of the water group, has attracted many fans to go on a tourist pilgrimage, and Numazu Blue as the only professional football club in the local area has naturally achieved many official or private linkages.
In 2018 and 2019, Numazu Qinglan invited two voice actresses from the water troupe, Susuma Saito and Kanako Takatsuki, as guests to kick off the match, and both games were won. After the game, many people laughed on social media that it was the buff of "water power", and called Saito Juxia, who kicked off with Mayor Numazu, "Goddess of Victory".
Saito Zhuxia and Numazu Qinglan are indeed the most fateful.
Her character Watanabe Yao, who voiced the water group, is represented by cyan blue. In 2019, when young midfielder Hikaru Shimizu joined the team, he greeted fans with Watanabe Yao's representative move "Full Throttle Yosoro" at the press conference. In the same year, Numazu Blue also introduced striker Ryo Watanabe, whose romanized WatanabeRyo is very similar to WatanabeRyo's WatanabeYou and is often used as a meme.
These events also allowed two different fan groups to quickly merge. Many Mizusui people go on pilgrimage to Numazu while watching a blue game. The group composed of local double fans also began to cheer for the team with two songs "Blue Sky JumpingHeart" and "MIRAITICKET" in the stands.
So when more money was needed to upgrade the stadium lighting, the club once again remembered the linkage with the water mass.
In March 2022, Numazu Qinglan launched a water group linkage plan on the basis of the original crowdfunding. There are two tiers of 15,000 yen and 50,000 yen, and in addition to T-shirt tickets, you can also get limited badges, support flags, and acrylic commemorative certificates.
As soon as the linkage plan came out, it was announced that the full amount was added within two days. At the same time, it brought a lot of exposure and stimulus, and the entire crowdfunding package quickly exceeded the original goal, eventually exceeding 40 million yen.
Coupled with the funds raised from other channels, Numazu Qinglan started the renovation project of the stadium lighting as he wished. The sources totaling 100 million yen are as follows: 35 million from the club, including 26 million after crowdfunding minus the cost of giveaways, and 9 million in direct donations; More than 40 million from the corporate version of the hometown tax, which is a kind of tax in Japan that "pays" taxes to the hometown in advance in exchange for future incentives; In the end, more than 20 million yuan came from the special subsidy of the Numazu municipal government.
Of the entire cost of 100 million yen, the profit directly from the water group linkage plan is actually only more than 10 million. But it is the cross-border linkage with two-dimensional idols that has brought widespread impact, making this matter known to more people, and indirectly stimulating more hometown tax donations and the enthusiasm of the municipal government.
At the lighting ceremony after the completion of the renovation, the president of the J-League personally attended the scene to thank all the people of Mizusui on behalf of Japanese professional football, and hoped that everyone could participate in football for a longer period of time in the future. Numazu Blue put flags full of water balls in the entrance passage and the stadium, and also took a video and posted it on official social media as a thank you.
In this way, "saving Numazu Blue from being withdrawn from the J-League" was a great success.
Many Mizushui people said with tears in their eyes: Although the water group failed to stop the abandoned school in both animation and reality (the prototype Numazu City Nagaizaki Middle School closed and merged in 2021), this time they successfully stopped the scrap team!
More than "football + two-dimensional"
With the success of this case, it is not difficult to imagine more cooperation between the two sides.
A few months later, more linkages were in full swing. Numazu Blue and Water Group jointly launched a customized version of the second away jersey, not only with the title on the back, but also the colorful stripes on the hem of the jersey are the representative colors of the 9 idols of the Water Group. As part of the campaign, all the players wore the kit in three J3 League home matches.
Among them, the match on September 3, 2022 invited two voice actors from the water troupe, old acquaintance Saito Juxia and official CP "Love Jimoto" Aika Kobayashi to the court. Kicked off again and participated in a series of events such as pre-match celebrations and post-match farewells. However, this time there was no buff in the power of water, and Numazu Qinglan lost to his opponent that day.
The linkage of the quadratic element is also unfolded simultaneously. In the official mobile game "LoveLive! Gakuen Idol Festival has launched a new UR card that uses Numazu Blue Linkage Standing Painting, which players can freely redeem through the event. Although this mobile game has been announced to be discontinued in 2023, it is estimated that there will still be a Numazu jersey in the upcoming 2nd generation.
2023 will be a new starting point for the Numazu Blue team. On the one hand, the J3 League finally has a relegation system this year, and they who finished fourth from bottom last season will certainly not be able to continue to lie flat. The new head coach is Japanese football legend Masashi Nakayama, who has been training with the team in previous years and wants to return, but has not played official matches, and now he has finally made up his mind to pick up the coaching whip.
On the other hand, Numazu Blue has announced that it will be working with LoveLive! Sunshine!! More collaborations, including becoming an official sponsor of the team. Such cooperation is not only a classic case in Japanese football, but also may have greater pioneering significance for the future.
Because, this is not just football + two-dimensional, but more levels of integration and communication.
There are many more collaborations between the water troupe and Numazu City, including one-day bus captains, live performances, endorsements, summer festivals, bus stations, and so on. Mayor Numazu personally participated in the water group's anniversary concert, and Numazu City was voted the most wanted town in the country at the "Hometown Koshien" event in Akihabara, Tokyo in 2016, and in 2019 it really achieved population growth after 37 years.
Numazu Qinglan's lighting renovation plan last year, without the support of the municipal government and local resident enterprises, the two-dimensional idol alone cannot change the overall situation. And they get that support because they are rooted in the local team culture. For example, the aforementioned voice actor visit on September 3 was actually part of the "Numazu Citizen Special Appreciation Contest" that day.
All Numazu citizens can go to the scene with the free hospitality ticket in the newspaper. Around this game, the surrounding professional sports teams such as basketball, cycling and archery teams will simultaneously carry out promotional and experience projects. The city government held various events such as picnics in the wide park where the stadium belongs, and a food festival was held in the nearby shopping street.
Originating from the cooperation between football and the second dimension, it eventually became a new festival in Numazu City.
Regardless of the culture, perhaps this is the best way to integrate and take root in the soil.