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medea10 · 3 years

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My Review of Love Live Nijigasaki School Idol Club

AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I’M BACK IN IDOL HELL!

Another damn Love Live! Seriously? Another damn one!?

Actually, I knew this was going to happen from like almost two years ago. Back when I was an active player with the rhythm game app LLSIF, we’d get these special characters popping in every now and then, usually as SSR, SR, or N scouts. Then in 2019, they put out singles for each girl to play and I knew then and there that a new Love Live was already in the works and were going to feature these girls.

THIS STORY: First of all, the characters of this story are not becoming idols because the school is in danger of closing down. I know that was like a big thing in the original Love Live and in Sunshine, but that’s not the case this time. This school looks very well populated and well-established. So let’s just squash that trope.

Ayumu and Yuu got bit by the idol bug leaving school one day when they came across a solo performance out in the open. The girl performing is named Setsuna Yuki and she’s part of the Idol Club at Nijigasaki (the school Ayumu and Yuu attend). The next day, they learned from the student council that the club has been disbanded at the request of Setsuna. So what do Ayumu and Yuu do now? They’re going to try and revive it!

But what about the girl who started the idol club in the first place, Setsuna?! The reason for Setsuna disbanding the club was because she felt that she and the rest of the girls in the group were on a different wavelength. So she decided to disban the club, leaving the other girls, Emma, Kanata, Shizuku, and Kasumi to go their separate ways. But that wasn’t the only thing on Setsuna’s plate. Setsuna kinda lives a double life on campus. She’s Setsuna in the school idol club, but she’s also the student council president, Nana. So Ayumu, Yuu, and Setsuna end up reviving the idol club. Emma, Kasumi, Shizuku, and Kanata end up joining again. And eventually, we get other members Ai, Rina, and Karin to join in. And since there’s quite a long list of characters, let’s talk about them.

Ayumu is one of the first girls to revive the idol club. Unlike the main girls from the other series like Honoka and Chika, she’s not as crazy-energetic and idol-crazy. She’s more of the lover of cute things. She was sparked by idols when she saw Setsuna perform.

Speaking of cute things, Kasumi is the idol-loving crazy girl that loves all things cute and wants all of her performances to be cute.

Emma is the first Love Live character originally from a place that’s not Japan. This Swiss-miss came to Japan to become an idol.

Setsuna lives the double life. At school, she’s the disciplinarian student council president, Nana. But when she’s in idol form, she’s Setsuna Yuki ready to shine on stage.

Shizuku got interested in becoming an idol to help with her acting aspirations.

Rina got curious and ended up joining the idol club despite having problems showcasing her emotions. That’s why you see the computerized monitor on her face.

Ai joined alongside with Rina and with her Sporty Spice persona, she’ll get the club on their feet.

Karin is already well-established in the modeling world, but ended up getting into the idol world after hanging with Emma.

Kanata…likes to sleep. Oh, and she has a younger sister in an idol group at her school.

Then there’s Yuu! She isn’t the kind of idol member that sings and performs like the other girls, but works to support each girl in their goals.

Oh and all of these idols are SOLO ARTISTS!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: As usual with the Love Live franchise (and most other idol animes), these voice actors are brand-spankin’ new. These girls are usually only known for their work as actual idols and only a few of them really go on to do a full-length voice actor career. Then I get, SURPRISE! Akari Kitou is in this too! This girl was in EVERYTHING these past two years! Everything! Every-damn-thing! Now she’s a Love Live waifu! Actually, several of the seiyuus here I’ve seen in a few things here and there and that’s pretty rare since I’m not hip to all the idol groups in Japan.

Now for the dub, because we all know FUNimation! Yeah, they licensed this just like the previous Love Live series. However, they really kept this series all to themselves where not even Hulu could air it. At the moment, no dub has been announced or planned. I’m assuming it’ll happen one day. I only say this because of all the other Love Live series. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Ayumu is played by Aguri Oonishi

*Setsuna is played by Tomori Kusunoki (known for LLENN on SAO: Gun Gale Online)

*Kasumi is played by Mayu Sagara

*Ai is played by Natsumi Murakami

*Emma is played by Maria Sashide

*Rina is played by Chiemi Tanaka (known for Ririko on Sakura Quest)

*Kanata is played by Akari Kitou (known for Nezuko on Demon Slayer, Yashiro on Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, Iwanaga on In/Spectre, Tsukasa on Tonikawa, Aru on Hitoribocchi, and Kaho on Blend-S)

*Shizuku is played by Kaori Maeda (known for Selka on SAO: Alicization)

*Karin is played by Miyu Kubota (known for Sister Lily on Black Clover)

*Yuu is played by Hinaki Yano

NEW BEST GIRL: As you may know, I have picked my favorite girls from the Love Live fandom. Nozomi is best girl in the original and when it comes to Sunshine, Ruby is tops!

When I saw the new girls back when the app LLSIF released all the single songs for the Nijigasaki club, I was curious about one particular girl. I had a feeling Rina was going to be a special kind of interesting. Why was she wearing a special mask on stage? Is she an introvert who hates to be seen up-close? I had to learn more about her! Turns out Rina had a lot of trouble expressing her feelings. When she’s excited, sad, irritated, or satisfied, it’s just the same expression. I love Rina. She’s my precious cinnamon roll and if anyone talks smack about her is gonna get a bop in the face.

ABOUT YUU: I know what you’re thinking, what the hell is going on with Love Live giving us 10 girls instead of 9? And I would agree! LLSIF game gave us 9 solo albums and Yuu is not among any of them. But then I recently downloaded LLSIF All Stars and discovered the interactive portion with all of the girls and how your character is the unspoken 10th member of the group. Yeah, Yuu is pretty much that character.

SHIPPING: In the original series, I was a bit of a multi-shipper that was open to any hookups if I can see it. When Sunshine came along, I was still a multi-shipper, but heavily Kanan x Mari to a point where I’m imagining their wedding. This time around…yeah, once again I found myself shipping the fuck out of third-years.

This is Karin x Emma. I support the fuck out of this. Never forget that!

And while I’m at it, let’s add Ai x Rina. Ai was literally Rina’s first friend. She will go anywhere for this girl and do anything for her.

I should probably add Ayumu x Yuu too. But then again, this is Love Live. No matter what ship we all choose, it’s all for naught as no one really confesses their feelings for each other. Right?

Hahaha…Foreshadowing!

THE SAME, BUT…: Yeah, you know how this goes. Since this is an idol anime and the third one from the same franchise, I’m gonna squawk about the similarities this series has with the first two Love Lives. Yes, we’ve got the cutesy, annoying idol with Kasumi. Yes, we have the token class president with Setsuna. Yes, the animation for all the dance scenes is wonky CGI. And yes, we have a center second year with a red-ish hue to her hair with Ayumu. But there’s just so many glaring differences compared to the other two series.

*First of all, the school is not in any danger of closing down. The original Love Live had Honoka and her friends starting a school idol club to drum up attention for their school so it wouldn’t have to shut down. Love Live Sunshine also had that with sadder outcomes for the school. This school is huge, has many different clubs and activities. This school is safe! But if they pull some shit out in season two saying it has to close down, I call bullshit.

*Nijigasaki High School Idol Club mostly has solos. One of the reasons for the falling out at the beginning between Setsuna, Kasumi, Emma, Kanata, and Shizuku was differences. Every girl has their own thing and they respect that. Even in the app, there are a lot of solo songs and only a few where two or more of the girls are singing together.

*Add to that, this group doesn’t really have a “group name”. I mean Nijigasaki School Idol Club doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue like μ's or Aqours.

*The big, scary student council president is a second year. Unlike Eli and Dia from the previous series, Setsuna (a second year student) is really the scary one with power. But much like Dia, she does have a passion for idols. It’s just that Setsuna goes above and beyond to hide that along with her true self. I bring this up because when the second season comes (AND IT WILL), I have a feeling they’ll introduce this one character that’s in the game and that’s going to be quite the game changer.

FAVORITE SONG: Chase by Setsuna.

I think all of us were blown away by that song in episode one.

ENDING: After Diver Fes and Karin’s solo performance, the girls decide to hold a training camp at their school. During the camp, Yuu was still awe-struck by everyone’s dedication to the club and the performances in the previous episode. And by the end of the camp, Yuu says there should be a school idol festival to show everyone that school idols are awesome. Much to my dismay, I doubt that this anime will follow the game route and have μ's and Aqours perform. Actually, the groups seen throughout the series are characters I would run across in one of the other Love Live apps, including Kanata’s little sister. Moving on!

Everything was going along swimmingly with this School Idol Festival. The student council (or Setsuna as her alter ego Nana) agreed to it, the students of Nijigasaki are excited for what’s to come, and other schools including Kanata’s sister Haruka’s school are willing to participate. However, the big friction that sparked came from Ayumu. As we all know, she and Yuu are close as can be. Ever since the resurrection of the School Idol Club, Yuu has been there to realize the dreams of everyone. Ayumu got jealous, especially seeing Yuu with Setsuna. So she corners her and wants Yuu all to herself and…

Whoa. Confirmed lesbianism!

Let’s just say Ayumu’s jealousy came and went as she realized she can’t stop Yuu’s dreams and that Ayumu’s gonna have plenty of devoted fans besides Yuu. So thankfully that was resolved quicker than I thought and now we can focus on the School Idol Festival. The festival was actually going really well. There were separate stages for all of the solo idols and there were sample songs from all the Nijigasaki girls heard throughout the finale, and only a few hiccups during the day. But nothing Rina couldn’t fix. So much for the rainstorm!

Oh come on guys, plenty of idols from this franchise and other shows performed in the rain and they all turned out just fi…

Oh, I forgot about Honoka.

Oof. Zombieland Saga did her wrong. Never mind what I said!

Unfortunately, the rain didn’t clear up until 7:05 (five minutes after the time allowed for this festival). But all of these idol fans waited and they wanted a show. And so, that’s what they got. Nijigasaki and all the other participating schools performed together. So the festival was a big hit. People who watched it sent a request for another festival to happen. So there’s definitely going to be another School Idol Festival in their future. But what about a season two?

Pfft. COME ON! You know there’s going to be a season two. The girls haven’t experienced heartache of the upperclassmen graduating. Shioriko hasn’t been introduced yet. Tokimeki Runners hasn’t been sung yet. An actual Love Live hasn’t happened yet. That is the whole point of this franchise, right? To have idols participate in the famous Love Live School Idol Festival? So yeah, I know no one has greenlit the Nijigasaki series or announced anything, but I know it’s gonna happen. I can smell it. Love Live will never die. Why else is there going to be a Love Live Superstar series coming out in July?

I gotta say I enjoyed this series. It’s nice to see the struggle of creative differences with the club members. I mean in the past two series, the girls would all agree to something or eventually get to a happy conclusion and sing together in perfect harmony. Cute, but not realistic! And these girls are all very different so it’s good to see a lot more solo performances. Both μ's and Aqours have members with solo songs. It’s just that if you’re an anime only person, you probably wouldn’t know that. Otherwise you would know that Riko and Maki are superior in the singing department.

Prove me otherwise!

Recommendations are always tricky in this area. Idol shows are either loved or hated by the anime community. And I unfortunately can only recommend this to idol show watchers. I’ve already stuck my neck out to recommend Zombieland Saga to everyone.

If you would like to watch Love Live Nijigasaki High School Idol Club (fuck that’s a mouth-full), it is available for streaming only on FUNimation.

#anime review #love live #love live nijigasaki high school idol club #setsuna yuki #ayumu uehara #kanata konoe #rina tennoji #kasumi nakasu #emma verde #shizuku osaka #ai miyashita #karin asaka #yuu takasaki

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