On my short trip to Japan, I ditched my friends (who aren’t in the LL! fandom) for a detour to Numazu. The timing wasn’t great—I only had 3 or so hours—and it was raining kind of hard, but I managed to have a good time. Photos ahead!



Getting to Numazu wasn’t too bad, since I wasn’t going to Uchiura; it’s on the JR Tokaido line, so it’s not difficult. The annoying part was storing my luggage (since I was in between accommodations). If you have luggage to store, there are six large lockers: two near the FamilyMart west of the south exit, two east of the south exit, and two near the Lawson at the north exit. (The north exit is the least convenient, but that also means that it’s more likely to have room for your stuff.)



When you walk out of the south exit of the JR Numazu station, the Love Live! Sunshine!! themed cafe (”Sun! Sun! Sunshine Cafe”) can be seen straight ahead.

I started my tour at the cafe, and was immediately confronted by temptation.

They also had a couple of cute props: a bus stop for Uranohoshi and the mikan box that Chika (unsuccessfully) attempts to recruit from at the beginning.



After resolving to shop only after I finished my meal, the waitress seated me in the cafe proper, across from Kanan’s chibi picture. There were messages from Anchan, Rikyako, and Suwawa written on the walls (though they aren’t too clear in my photos… sorry).

Here’s a look at the menus for the day. This was on 3/31, so it was the last day Hanamaru’s birthday plate was available.

I ordered Ruby’s drink (strawberry juice and milk with whipped cream), You’s Yokisoba, and Maru’s dessert plate. The Yokisoba was really filling, so finishing Maru’s plate was a bit challenging!

(If you go, be aware that you pay at the register, so that you don’t get weird looks after looking around frantically!) After the meal, I dumped a bunch of cash on merchandise, and headed out to hit up the Gamers branch.

They had a couple of tables set up displaying remnants of Aikyan’s stint here, a shrine of sorts for Hanamaru’s birthday, and notebooks for fans to leave their mark. (I wrote a bit in Ruby’s notebook!) The merch was mostly LL!-themed, and they even had a section dedicated to μ’s seiyuu CDs/BDs.



I ended up dumping some cash here too (what a surprise)… My next stop was Marusan Bookstore, where the first years are shown early on in the anime (and it does sound like a bookstore Hanamaru would frequent).

They had a shelf just for Love Live!-related books (with some nice fanart displayed to the side). There’s a promotion where if you buy enough LL!-related books, you get a bookmark (I think?), but I resisted since I’d already bought a bunch of things earlier.

At this point, I was running up against my time limit, so I went back to the station’s south exit to pick up a Noppo snack before I left. (Noppo is a long soft bread with some sort of filling. It’s featured occasionally in the show, and I think it’s native to the Numazu area.) I got the LL! Sunshine!! themed flavor, with sea salt caramel filling.

My destination after Numazu was Osaka, so I transferred to the Shinkansen at the Mishima station. I think it’s shown once or twice in the anime or PVs, since it’s often one of the faster ways to get from Numazu to the major cities.



And that’s it for my too-brief Numazu stop! Next time I come to Japan, I hope I can visit Uchiura too~



(a mountain of merch photos from my whole japan trip here!)