So, William Shatner Is A Fan Of ‘Love Live’

Anime fandom can come in many forms as the medium offers quite a variety of different tones and styles that can appeal to a wide variety of people. Often this means that when someone reveals they are a fan of anime it can be surprising.

Especially when someone like William Shatner reveals himself to be a fan of Love Live!

Twitter interactions often lead to the strangest revelations since it means that all kinds of people can freely interact with one another, meaning fans can hit their favorite actors and actresses the most outlandish of questions. One fan asked Shatner who his favorite Idol was and he responded with “OK it’s Umi.”

After being surprised at the question, he answers with an actual Idol instead of brushing off the question. Whether or not he’s actually a fan of the series (or whether or not he has someone handling his social accounts) is still up in the air, but Shatner hilariously kept hinting at his fandom and sparked all sorts of Love Live debates.

When one fan joked that he chose the wrong girl, he responded with “If I wanted someone stubborn I’d choose [Maki] or Nico.” And this fandom even extended to the newer series, Love Live! Sunshine!!, as Crunchyroll asked who his favorite girl from that group was.

Shatner’s response? That he was “partial to blondes” and deciding on Eli as his favorite. Even if these Twitter interactions were a hilarious rib from the famous actor, it’s fun to imagine Shatner sitting with a few episodes of Love Live!

For those unfamiliar with Love Live! School Idol Project, the series is a joint project between ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki G‘s magazine, music label Lantis, and animation Studio Sunrise. The story follows Honoka Kosaka, a girl who is attending a school that is about to be closed down due to a lack of new applicants. Discovering that school idol groups are very popular, Honoka decides to start a group with friends from school. Soon they enter in the cross-country idol competition, Love Live.

The series first launched in Dengeki G in 2010, and has subsequently released many music CDs, animated music videos, manga, video games, and two seasons of an anime series. The first season ran for 13 episodes in 2013, and the second season aired in 2014 for the same episode count. The series has been licensed for an English language release by NIS America, with a sequel series following a new set of school idols, Love Live! Sunshine!! launching in 2015.