The developer behind Link! Like! Love Live! has collapsed. ODD No Inc., the Tokyo-based studio responsible for the school idol rhythm game, received a bankruptcy commencement order from the Tokyo District Court on August 5, 2026, alongside two affiliate companies — just over two months after the game itself closed its doors. The scale of the financial damage is staggering: liabilities of ¥10.32 billion (around SGD 87 million).
A Game That Tried to Live in Real Time
Link! Like! Love Live! launched in May 2023 as the smartphone home of the Hasunosora Girls’ High School Idol Club — a new group within the beloved Love Live! franchise. What made the game unusual was its real-time calendar system: in-game events ran on a literal calendar, with the idols living out their school year day by day in sync with real life, complete with live-streaming sessions that fans across Asia tuned into regularly.
For Singapore fans who had followed the Love Live! franchise through concerts, physical merchandise, and earlier series entries, Hasunosora felt like a new chapter worth following closely. The real-time idol life format proved enormously engaging — but it also placed an extraordinary operational burden on the developer.
When ODD No announced the game’s shutdown in April 2026, the company cited skyrocketing operational costs and insufficient human resources to sustain the system. As relayed by Automaton West, ODD No described the real-time calendar’s operational demands as "unimaginable" and "far greater than for any typical live-service game." The game ended service on June 30, 2026.
The Financial Picture — A Mountain of Debt
Credit investigation firm Tokyo Shoko Research published a breakdown on August 13 (Japanese), reported by Automaton West: ODD No’s liabilities had reached ¥10.32 billion ($64.7 million USD / approximately SGD 87 million) as of the fiscal year ended December 2024. The game’s net loss for FY2023 alone was ¥5.6 billion, leaving the company with a liability excess of ¥6.8 billion at the end of that year.
The final months were marked by dramatic signs of distress. In December 2025 and again in March 2026, ODD No’s own headquarters — which doubled as the CEO’s home — was subjected to provisional attachment orders filed by alleged business partners. This legal measure freezes assets to protect creditors’ ability to recover what they’re owed once formal bankruptcy proceeds.
The bankruptcy proceedings, as reported via ITMedia (Japanese) and covered in Automaton West, cover ODD No alongside two affiliated companies — all three received commencement orders from the Tokyo District Court on August 5.
A Bruising Year for Mobile Game Developers
ODD No’s collapse is part of a wider reckoning in Japan’s mobile gaming industry. Automaton West reports, citing Tokyo Shoko Research data, that 10 mobile game developers went bankrupt between January and July 2026 alone — versus just 3 for all of 2025. With ODD No added to the tally, the sector is on pace for a new annual record.
The Love Live! franchise itself is unaffected. The Hasunosora idols continue to have music, merchandise, and an active YouTube presence — their story simply moved back to other media after the app closed. For Singapore Love Live! fans who want to keep up, the broader franchise continues through other anime and music releases still in active production.
But the closure of Link! Like! Love Live! — and now its developer’s bankruptcy — is a sharp reminder of how costly ambition can be in the live-service space. Running a real-time idol school life, in perfect sync with the calendar, seven days a week, turned out to be a different matter entirely from building a great concept on paper.