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» Star Trek’s William Shatner picks best girl in idol anime Love Live!, sets off fan debate

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Star Trek’s William Shatner picks best girl in idol anime Love Live!, sets off fan debate

Casey Baseel Dec 21, 2017
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The ever-headstrong Captain Kirk will not be swayed by haters who disagree with his choice of school idol.

One undeniable characteristic of hardcore anime fans is the intensity with which they’ll debate the finer, even trivial, points of Japanese animation. For example, for any series with a moderately large cast of characters, you can expect fans to not only have their personal favorite, but be ready and willing to explain to others why their pick is far superior to any other.

Of course, such displays of passion aren’t exclusive to anime enthusiasts. You can find similarly strong sentiments within the Western science fiction community, and so it’s not hard to imagine what would happen if someone were to ask Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, actor William Shatner, who’s best girl in idol anime Love Live!

https://twitter.com/CephaloQueen/status/942958690294001664

Unlike, say, Samuel L. Jackson, Shatner isn’t widely known to have any preexisting deep interest in anime. Nonetheless, he tweeted his reply just over half an hour after the question was posed, telling the world that Umi Sonoda is his favorite..

Why? OK it’s Umi https://t.co/JFBDvKXPan

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 19, 2017

▼ Love Live! idol Umi Sonoda

#園田海未 #可愛いとおもったらRT #海未ちゃん好きな人はRT pic.twitter.com/RxSokjdJMq

— 園田海未bot＊ラブアローシュート＊ (@umimichan315bot) December 20, 2017

Of course, no fan debate can be wrapped up so quickly, and several Love Livers (as the series fans are known) leapt into action to inform Shatner that he was wrong, if not in his pick, than at least in his spelling.

But what about Maki? pic.twitter.com/vbcNswMMKG

— Andrew Simpson (@AndySimpson96) December 19, 2017

Maki is the true answer here.

— Tim is off to meh (@TheTimcade) December 19, 2017

https://twitter.com/toshinokyokos/status/943318077894250497

But while Shatner’s initial response of “OK it’s Umi”may sound like a non-committal, randomly-plucked-from-Wikipedia response to get an otaku off his back, it turns out that Shatner is well-versed enough in Love Live! to hold his own against such aspersions about his taste in anime idols.

▼ His Love Live! spelling skills continue to be on point, as he even knows that Nico’s name is unorthodoxly Romanized with a C instead of a K.

I know how to spell Maki. If I wanted someone stubborn I’d choose her or Nico. https://t.co/OiBTQ2wtk3

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 20, 2017

Shatner’s clear-cut feelings on the Umi vs. Maki debate quickly inspired some fan-made visual mashups.

https://twitter.com/WinterJolt/status/943237854087409664 https://twitter.com/WinterJolt/status/943355355450544128

With his Love Live! stance now known, Twitter users followed up by asking his opinion on best girl in Love Live! Sunshine!! and rival idol franchise The Idolmaster, and even male idol series King of Prism. Shatner hasn’t offered any direct responses, though he did take a moment to talk about his distaste for Idolmaster (or at least it’s Cinderella Girls incarnation) and express his puzzlement at anime fandom in general.

I’ve noticed the anime world has these meltdowns with “important questions that must be answered” 🙄 That’s a new twist in fandoms.🤣 Idolm@ster is the Cinderella Girls franchise? They are too commercialized for my granddaughters. 🤷🏼‍♂️ https://t.co/1a6gREvpO9

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 20, 2017

Of course, some will be quick to point out that “meltdowns with ‘important questions that must be answered’” are neither new nor solely something that happens among anime fans, and have in fact been occurring between Trekkies for decades. But at the very least, the English-speaking otaku community has Shatner’s answer to its Love Live! question.

Source: Hachima Kiko

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’d like to remind everyone that regardless of who’s best girl in Love Live!, Magic Knight Rayearth’s Umi Ryuzaki is best Umi in anime.