Love Live! Superstar!!

 is a Japanese multimedia project co-developed by Kadokawa Corporation, music label Lantis, and animation studio Sunrise. The project is the fourth installment in the "Love Live!" franchise after "Love Live! School Idol Project", "Love Live! Sunshine!!", and "Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club". An anime television series will premiere on NHK E in July 2021.
Development.
The franchise announced a separate anime adaptation other than "Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club" in January 2020, which features a new set of characters who are all first year students in a newly reopened school that was once demolished. The school lies between the Omotesando, Harajuku, and Aoyama neighborhoods of Tokyo. In addition, an audition for one of the main cast was held on March 12, 2020, but was postponed due to COVID-19. Atsushi Saitō serves as the character design adapting style of the series' original character designer Yūhei Murota. The school name was decided through fans' votes and concluded in May 2020 with . The main characters names were also announced: Kanon Shibuya, Tang Keke, Chisato Arashi, Sumire Heanna, and Ren Hazuki.
The project's name, "Love Live! Superstar!!" was announced in July through the series' exclusive magazine "Love Live! Days". In September, the school idol group's name, "Liella!" was also chosen through fans' votes. The name was chosen among 16 options that fans could vote for. The name "Liella!" comes from a combination from a French word "lier" which means "to connect", which is the same as in the school's name in Japanese, and "brilliante", which means an "inner glow". Behind the group's name lies the feelings of the hope that the small stars of today who have their own brilliance will become superstars someday. 
The cast of the five main characters was later revealed in December 2020: Sayuri Date, Liyuu, Nako Misaki, Naomi Payton, and Nagisa Aoyama. Date and Aoyama are members who passed the open audition that was held earlier in the year. The group's debut single, released on April 7, 2021. The single includes an animation PV and released in two versions—each with different B-sides: and . It was announced during the casts' first livestream on January 30, 2020, that Liella!'s songs will be playable through "Love Live! School Idol Festival" and its spin-off game "School Idol Festival All Stars" as 2D exclusive songs.
Characters.
Where appropriate, plot descriptions mentioned below refer to the anime television series. Other parts of the franchise, such as the manga and novel series, feature some variations in the storyline. 