Despite Faux Backlash, Japan’s Nishiura Mikan Will Retain Tamaki Chika of Love Live! As Brand Ambassador

A number of days ago Sankaku Complex reported on news regarding the Love Live! Sunshine!! character Takami Chika and a promotional campaign she was involved with.

The campaign featured posters around LalaPort Numaza shopping mall.

Then the Twitter backlash occurred. People pretending to care about social issues, when they really don’t – because caring isn’t simply making a tweet or two with a pathetic hot take. Regardless, these pretenders attempted to stir backlash for this poster because the skirt Chika is wearing, was labeled by them to be: “transparent”….

Unfortunately, the poster(s) was then removed from the mall…

That’s the TLDR of the old news, here’s a video discussion of it if you are curious, below that we will cover the new news –

After the backlash occurred a petition was created from people supporting Chika;

With over 18,000 signatures, a response was prompted by JA Nansun ( https://archive.is/W8MLj )

In part of the response by JA Nansun, the rep reported back to the petitioners that their efforts emboldened their staff with the positive support. They also claimed to maintain the promotions with Chika.

By the way, if you’re out of the loop with some of the terminology here, let me explain in a simplified manner the main parties involved;

Chika Takami: Love Live! Character whose favorite food are oranges.

JA Nansun: A farming collective in Japan.

LalaPort Numazu: Japanese shopping mall or as described on the website; “Supercenter to be able to enjoy wide layer including young people carrier from family largest in East Shizuoka.”

Nishiura Mikan; Local brand producing mandarin oranges. Partnered with Love Live! / Chika for Chika to be their new brand ambassador ( similar to a mascot ). Disclaimer; I believe the picture below is a product by Nishiura Mikan but as I am not fluent in Japanese, this may not be correct information. I am still posting the picture however, because I am more confident than not that this is accurate. Also, regardless of the company owning the product, it is an example of a physical box of mandarin oranges featuring the Chika promotion. 

So in conclusion; JA Nansun, the farming collective, allegedly responded to the petition claiming that Chika will remain brand ambassador for Nishiura Mikan.

This is interesting because I would have found it more likely that Nishiura Mikan would respond to the petition, not JA Nansun on their behalf.

Either way, this is good news.

It seems that JA Nansun did not address the poster being removed from LalaPort Numazu. However, Sankaku Complex did post images of shops in nearby mall Numazu Minato Shinsenkan, who are still using posters with Chika.

So perhaps the original backlash did not have as much of an effect as it seemed at first. Alternatively, it shows how many Japanese people don’t care for online faux outrage.

Maybe a combination of both.

Video discussion of this update;