If you’re a fan of anisongs and anime song artists, it’s likely that somewhere along the line you’ve heard of the Animelo Summer Live, or AniSama, a yearly musical event bringing together a huge range of artists who perform the theme songs to some of the most popular anime for a massive, multi-day concert. This year’s event, being held on August 30th, 31st and September 1st, will be the show’s 15th anniversary, and to celebrate this they’re pulling out all the stops to make it the biggest event to date. While only a few artists had been announced before today, on the massive Cobalt Blue stage at Anime Japan 2019, the organizers behind the event blew open the floodgates with a slew of announcements confirming which artists you’ll be able to see perform at this year’s event.
After getting the crowd warmed up, MOTSU, the MC for the event and a member of the group m.o.v.e., wasted no time getting things started with a huge array of brand new artists being announced for each of the three dates that the event will be taking place on this year. For the first day of the event on August 30th, a huge number of confirmed artists for the event were announced. Returning to the event for the 6th time is i☆Ris, an artist known for lending their talent to a variety of anime, including producing the theme song for next season’s Kenja no Mago. Also announced Kaori Ishihara (a voice actor who made her debut as an artist last year and performing as a solo artist for the first time), Masayoshi Oishi, Konomi Suzuki (known most recently for performing the opening Theme for Re:Zero), Sphere (reuniting for their 10th anniversary this year following a hiatus since 2017), fhána, Minori Suzuki, ReoNa (for her first performance at the end having performed the ending theme for Sword Art Online: Alicisation) and Roselia (a girl group from the idol anime/mobile game BanG Dream!).
The event showed no signs of slowing from there, as we went straight into the announcements for the second day. Returning to the event for the third time were the boys from THE IDOLM@STER Side M, Asaka (whom recently performed the opening theme for Yuru Camp), Minori Suzuki, Minori Chihara, Takuma Terashima, TRUE, TrySail, Inori Minase, and Minami. Finally, on the third date of the event, we have Eir Aoi, Shouta Aoi, Yuma Uchida, Maaya Uchida, ZAQ, JAM PROJECT, Poppin’ Party (another BanG Dream! artist) alongside 2 debutants in Spira Spika (who recently performed the theme for Ao-chan Can’t Study) and buzz★Vibes.
After a whirlwind opening to the event noting all the artists set to perform at each of the concerts for the weekend, multiple of the artists came out on the stage, including Spira Spika, Poppin’ Party, and Eir Aoi to talk about the theme for the concert. Following 15 successful years of AniSama events over the years, the idea behind this year’s concert is ‘Stories’, each of the artists and fans had created strong memories, with the fan and the artists being the main character of this story. The feelings and emotions fans have for the artists have created countless stories, and this year is the year to bring these memories and stories together to create new memories and stories going into the future.
Fitting in with this idea of stories, the theme song for the event is called ‘Crossing Stories’, a brand new song created by Satou Junichi from fhána and performed by a bunch of the artists set to perform at the event and backed by the AniSama Band. This single is set to release on May 17th alongside a new cover of the first AniSama theme song, ONENESS.
Many of the artists came out onto the stage at this point to talk about their feelings about AniSama as an event fitting in with the theme for the event and the story and memories they have from the event.
Eir Aoi was one of these artists and a regular performer at the event both as a confirmed guest and as a secret guest last year. Having experienced the event many times before and in different capacities, she felt she understood the connection between the artists and the performers and what made this event so special. “Last year, I was a secret guest at the event, and I’ve been to the event a number of times before,” she stated, “but in my opinion, I want to create something that everyone can make together… Last time, when I was watching from backstage and I saw everyone, what I could see was everyone holding up their drinks, getting excited in the crowd and waving penlights, I was thinking ‘yes, AniSama’s story is already made with everyone together’… this year, I want to create more memories like that.”
The event closed out on details about how fans could purchase tickets. On March 27th, the Blu-rays for each concert from the 2018 AniSama event will go on sale, and included with each Blu-ray is a code that would allow fans to purchase tickets early through LINE TICKET. Not only that, through the AniSama website from now until April 7th, any merch for the Animelo Summer Live 2019 is 10% off.
Animelo Summer Live is once again looking like an enticing event for any fan of anisongs to attend, with an incredibly strong lineup of guests set to participate. The event is set to take place from August 30th until September 1st at Saitama Super Arena, with tickets costing 9,200yen.