About LINE

Maezawa from the President’s Office here, answering your question as well. Previously, the LINE account used by Universe may not have had a call button at all. For some reason, it does now. However, when we tested it internally, calling from a regular LINE account didn’t show an incoming call on our end. It may be because we’re viewing LINE on a PC, but we’re not entirely sure. We suspect it may be an issue with LINE’s official specifications. After trying several times, it did show an incoming call once. However, since multiple staff members are logged in and checking LINE, either the call couldn’t be connected or only one person received the notification. In any case, we concluded that it isn’t reliable enough to use. So although it may appear to be available from your end, LINE calls cannot be used. Please refrain from making LINE calls. When a date setting has been arranged, you should also have been given an emergency phone number. As a general rule, could you please try calling that number first? If no one answers, please try calling several times and also send us a message on LINE.

I’m Kazu, a male member. How long ago do you mean by “before”? As far back as I can remember—so long ago that I can’t even recall when it started—I believe calls were already possible. Update: A January 2013 article in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said, “On January 18, the number of LINE users worldwide surpassed 100 million.” So it looks like calls have been possible for at least eight years. Update 2: Ah, are you talking about LINE calls to the official account? I wonder when they became available. I haven’t tried it yet because I was wondering which branch it connects to, and whether it goes to FS or CS. Now I’m tempted to test it at 11:00. I’ll ask the staff and post the results here（笑） Update 3: I tried calling the account for western Japan on LINE, but no one answered. The account for eastern Japan doesn’t have a call button showing up.