Glad you're feeling better! Though I have to say now I'm super nervous about Rikako. Is it something bad? or just sad?

Ahaha, this is what happens when I have a sudden meltdown over seiyuu feels…

To Anon #1: Thanks! About the Rikyako thing, I guess I kinda overreacted because it took me by surprise (though again, in hindsight I shouldn’t have been all that shocked). As to the nature of it…uh, both? Well, it’s bad to me because it’s something sad, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing itself.



To Anon #2: Hello there! You’re right, I was planning to mention it in a future post. Since your ask was worded so politely though, I’ll actually just go over this part of the video now! And holy crap, you’re like the second person or something who’s told me that about my posts. Thank you! I’ll keep trying my best. :’)

Context for those who missed my spaghetti last night - I was watching a video about Rikyako’s past in the entertainment industry that was kindly submitted to me by @rikakomod. The video was made by a Korean fan who wanted to inform others about how Rikyako debuted long before her role in “Love Live! Sunshine!!”. I then stumbled across a fact that led to me figuring out a possibly sad detail about Rikyako, and I promptly went “NOPE goodbye not gonna deal with these feels, why am I like this???”



Back on track. The video goes over how Rikyako used to do modeling as a child, and was even in an idol group when she was in middle school. I already knew about that. What I didn’t know was that for a brief period in 2007, Rikyako and her mother performed as a comedic duo. Here’s a picture from the video, which appears to show a 14~15-year-old Rikyako with her mother(!!!):

As cute as this image this, that’s not why I freaked out.



It’s the name of their comedic act that held the surprise - a rather sad implication about Rikyako’s personal life. From what I deduced from that fact plus other details I knew about Rikyako, I would hazard to say that the above picture is the entire Aida household.

In other words: I suspect that Rikyako was raised by a single mother.



Explanation under the cut.



So in the video, the OP said that their act was called “모자가정” - which to my eyes, means “Hat Household”. Huh? What the heck kind of name is that?

Then I smacked my forehead and said, “Duh, I should be looking at what 모자 means in hanja (Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters), not Korean, since the OP must’ve translated it straight from Japanese.”

A bit of Googling led me to the conclusion that it stood for 母子, which means “mother-child”. I thought, “Oh okay, they’re a mother-and-daughter duo, so I guess that makes sense. ‘Mother-child household’ is kind of a weird name, but whatever worked for them.”

But then I got curious and decided to look up what the full unit name would be in Japanese. I ended up with 母子家庭 (boshi katei), plugged it into a Japanese dictionary, and came up with this:



…excuse me, what?!

Cue Yujacha going through the 5 Stages of Grief:

Denial: “Haha, I must have just translated this wrong…there’s no way that’s right…even though I’ve checked about three different sources…”

Anger: “Actually, why the heck would you name your comedy duo something like this?! It’s not funny! Being a single mom is not a joke!”

Bargaining: “Maybe it’s just them casually claiming that they’re the real breadwinners of the family? Though, Rikyako did also say in her KaneTomo interview that her mom got married at 19 and gave birth to Rikyako at 20. Oh, but she never said anything about not having a dad! …though she didn’t say anything about having a dad either. And being a young single mom is stressful, which would also explain those vicious fights Rikyako mentioned in the interview as well. Oh my god.”

Depression: “Just recently on UraRaji, Anchan was talking about how her dad was so proud of her that he bought her a new game console. And to think, Anchan was planning on quitting seiyuu work if she didn’t pass the LL audition. I wonder if Rikyako’s dad would’ve been proud of her too, after all those failed idol groups she went through…”

Acceptance: “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time people used tragedy for comedic purposes. Plus, everything I knew about Rikyako before this doesn’t seem to contradict this theory.“



I don’t have anything that explicitly confirms that Rikyako doesn’t have a father. But at the very least, the evidence does seem to indicate that she grew up in a single parent household.



I guess…it just made me feel for her. The entertainment industry is pretty rough in general, but Love Live has a particular knack for picking up cast members who’ve gone through a lot of hardship.



Kussun worked at a maid café. Suwawa, at one point, was a part-timer at a fast food restaurant.



Furirin debuted as a seiyuu in 2014, long before the Sunshine project was announced, but never found any work. Ainya also moved to Tokyo in 2014, and couldn’t find any major jobs for a year either.

Emitsun used to sit in a Starbucks and worry about not finding work as well.



King was able to advance from being an utaite (amateur singer on Niconico; the JP equivalent of YouTube singers) to a professional signed with Victor Entertainment - but her major single had poor sales and she never made it big.



And who could forget Pile? She’s a beautifully talented artist, but she failed to debut not just once, but twice. Without Maki, she would’ve given up her dream to be a singer. Now, instead of being stuck in a white-collar job, Pile has fans around the world who flock to her concerts.

Which leads us to Rikyako. If it’s true that she really did grow up without a dad, that could explain why she’s dabbled in acting, idol activities, and modeling since 2003. Perhaps Rikyako had to help out with bringing money into the household from a young age. Though, it couldn’t have been easy, as she went through multiple talent agencies before ending up at Ken Production.



That’s part of what makes me admire the Love Live seiyuu so much - despite their failures, they pushed on and eventually found something that brought so much joy to their lives, and to millions of fans as well. It’s all thanks to the hard work these girls put in that they’ve come this far and finally found success. But I do also think back to how the tagline for “Love Live! Sunshine!!” when it debuted was “Save us, Love Live!”. For people like Pile, Emitsun, Rikyako, and many, many, others, that’s exactly what this awe-inspiring franchise has done.

