Ranked #1096

Love Live! School Idol Project

Allow me to start with quite possibly the worst thing about this anime: the CG. It's pretty shocking, not as bad as some other anime, but still bad. The girls' skin color is way too bright and their movements seem a little too unnatural. It's not too noticeable, luckily.

Now onto the good things. Outside of the CG, the animation is generally pretty good. I know that Sunrise aren't the best studio when it comes to animation quality, but I haven't been able to see anything glaringly bad so far. The speaking animation isn't perfect, but given that it would take much more time to perfect something so fiddly, I'd say it's worth the compromise.

The main three girls don't stray particularly outside of some common archetypes. You have the lively and energetic MC Honoka, the shy girl Umi, and the kind, clever one Kotori. However, each of them has their own little quirks that make them different from other characters of the same archetype, and that's one of the things that I like the most about this show. More characters are introduced right off the bat in the third episode, each sporting their own unique traits. My personal favorite character is Nico, her wittiness and superiority complex make for quite the laugh for me.

The songs are really well done. Being an idol anime, the music obviously plays a key part in the entirety of the show. They're catchy and upbeat, the two things that they need to be.

Overall, I really enjoy Love Live. The story, while not spectacular, is good enough to keep me consistently entertained. The artwork is nice (bar the CG), the characters and their subsequent development are really well done and the music accompanying it all sounds great. If Sunrise had spend a little more time on the CG dancing, then this would have probably been a 9 or a 10 out of 10 from me.

I realise that shows like this are not for everyone, I was very skeptical at first with this being my first idol anime, and as someone who enjoyed it from minute one I recommend that if you haven't seen a show like this before, and you want to try it, Love Live! is a great place to start. read more

This show is a sad guilty pleasure of mine. I shouldn't like this, but I did.

It shows what hard work can really achieve. Especially with so much competition out there. It can really motivates you to be successful. With all that aside the show is very shallow and simple.

Cute girls dancing and singing to save their beloved school.

Story: Based around nine girls working to become idols and save their school. The initial story is okay, but nothing ever goes past that. The plot is weak and suffers from this, but what can you expect from a 13 episode series. The story can only be comparable when you take a slice-of-life. Each episode itself has it's own story. Don't expect much from it. I simply watched it for fun, nothing more or less.

Put aside potential flaws it gave a calming and easygoing atmosphere. This made the show feel comfortable. Like laying in your bed at night, nothing really changes, but it doesn't ever feel uncertain.
Sorry fans of this show but I'm going to give the story a 6.

Art: It wasn't bad at all. I didn't even know sunrise could make this high of quality. All aspects of the girls stage, and clothing were unique and changed often. This kept me waiting to see the next outfit.
Watching in HD i could tell some of the drawings during performances almost looked 3d. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing. At times it got weird to watch and i almost wished it would just stay 2d. It was more likely done because of budget. Much better than other shows *cough cough* .
Art is an 8.

Sound: I can't say much since i watched it in subbed and not many emotions were expressed through the characters. Other than that as far I could tell they fit the characters, nothing oddball my ears could hear.
Who could forget about the music. Most of the songs picked were very catchy and often found myself bobbing my head.
This deserves an 8.

Character: This is where the show failed to deliver on. For the first couple of episodes I didn't even know Kitori's mom was the principle. By this time almost the whole group had been already established.
when looking back at it most of the group was very 2 dimensional. Backgrounds never spoken, wondering even if some of the girls said a word after wanting to join Muse.
Although the ones that were shown some light had different personalities. All these differences make them very lovable. You could basically read all these characters, like the back of your hand.
This was very traumatizing to characters, and made it almost boring.
What could be more wrong? The fact that not once did they develop really in much of a way.
-The over dramatic sad scene at the end didn't prove anything.
Character, gets a 5.

Enjoyment: Like i said i really enjoyed this. Probably much more than I should have. Just the cuteness of everything kept me going. What does that say about me? I am a sucker for cute girls dancing in cute costumes. Hell Yeah!
A 7 for enjoyment.

Overall: Don't set goals high, at best don't set any. With that type of thinking you might like it.
Their are many shows of this variety, that said the originality is near zero. I don't recommend this if you look for deep plot inducing anime. I am forewarning you that their is not one guy in this. The rest is your choice at this point, is it worth watching or not? I would respond with yes. My hormones kept me going. I conclude my official first review with a 7. read more

Love Live! Is a School Idol Project, hence the name of course. I tried to get into Idolmaster, but something just wasn't blowing my skirt up.

However, Love Live! Jumps into things a little bit faster and it's funny and such a guilty pleasure. It's not bad but it's not excellent either. It's something to watch to make you smile and hum along when they sing and to laugh at the characters. It's not here to blow your mind, it's an Idol anime after all.

Story - 7

The story is about this all girl's school (at least I don't remember every seeing any boys), Otonokizaka High School, and it's going to be closed down in a few years because it's not attracting any new students. So, three students decide to start an Idol club because school idols are really popular at the time. Now with determination they are working to recruit more members and become one of the best school idol groups.

It's not a bad story, but it's not that big of one either. It's just a simple little thing to get the anime going.

Art - 8

The art is not bad in anyway. The dances are laid out very well and the characters look nice. Everything is appealing to look at and nothing makes you cringe about how poorly drawing things are. The characters are cute and all is well.

Sound - 9

The sound is VERY good. The singing matches the voices, by that I mean it sounds like the singing voice matches the characters voice. I'm not sure how this works (pardon my fail research skills) but it doesn't sound like different singers for the characters, which is great. The sounds are catchy and sound really nice. The OST isn't bad either.

Characters - 8.5

I feel like the characters are lacking a bit. We know who is who and how their basic personalities are, but you don't really know much about history - SO FAR. I'm caught up with the current episode and I'll update this later, but we know very little of some of the characters. Some of them we know a little more about, however it isn't much. Each character seems to have a distinct personality though, and we already have seen a tiny bit of character development.

Enjoyment - 9

I have been really enjoying this anime. I love girly things like this, it makes me feel so young again and I love singing and music. Enjoyment is hard to write about because it's how the viewer feels. I personally like watching all of the characters and their different ways, however some may feel differently.

Overall - 7.5 ( 8 )

I give this anime a 7.5 rating, but since you can't do that on here, it's an 8. The story is simple and kicks off the anime giving it a good start. The art isn't bad, but its not amazing either, and the characters are cute and hilarious. The sound is very nice, OST and the idol's singing and dancing. My enjoyment of this is high and the overall is decent. I say give this a shot, if you don't like it, oh well. To each his own. read more

So, you want to become a superstar?

It's not easy. In fact, it takes more than just skill. It takes the will, determination, support, technique, integrity, and a little bit of luck to reach success. In fact, reaching that point of success is especially hard when there's competition. Among other things, being an idol also means to shine and make yourself a name in the industry. You have to embrace what you do and no matter what, always aim for success.

At least, that's what the girls at Otonokizaka High School wishes to do...

Alright, this series known as Love Live! School Idol Project is actually an anime project co-produced with the music company Lantis Co., Ltd and studio Sunrise being involved. Not many people may know of the franchise but it already has achieved success in other fields of music CDS. Well, success doesn't come easy like I mentioned before and in this series, it definitely is something that's hard to achieve.

At first I was skeptical whether to check out this series or not. I mean, there are so many idol themed series already in the anime industry. Hell, even this Winter season of 2013, there is not one (Akb4OO8 Next Stage) but two (Akitasu) ongoing series involving music and idols. In fact, I sometimes get bored of watching this stuff because initially, I thought the show would just be about cute girls doing cute things. I wasn't too wrong either especially with our main female protagonist, Honoka Kosaka.

Just look at her, she's a cute little button with a cute little bang on the side of her head along with that bubbly personality.

However, beyond that outer image is a girl who is determined to prevent the shutdown of her beloved school. How? Form an idol group of course! But that's a lot easier said than done in reality. The series takes this idea and transform it into a more of a slice-of-life story in the beginning. At first, there's Honoka. Then later comes the rest of the characters, or rather girls who all becomes associated with the group. Oh and the group is called Muse represented by the "μ's" symbol. Obviously, it's a reflection of what the group stands for – a music ensemble of girls who wishes to show the world who they are and make a name for themselves while at the same time to prevent the destruction of their beloved school.

Thus, their journey begins...

The initial episodes (first half of the series) makes prominent highlights of some of the other girls in the series. Among these girls, they all have different personalities. There's the timid girl with the stage freight (Umi Sonoda), the cool chick (Nozomi), the tomboy (Rin Hoshizora), the cold heart (Eli), the gentle girl (Kotori Minami), and the childish (Niko Yazawa). Of course, I'm not naming all the characters here but you get the idea. From the initial premise of becoming superstars, these girls come together. However, I find the first of the episodes in this series to be dull and not done right. In fact, I find most of the girls' backgrounds to be stale and lacks any real characterization besides who they are. Perhaps the lack of a general background with the girls is the weakness here but regardless, the first half of the series is a bit mediocre in my book. Well, thanks to Niko, I did have some fun and enjoyed part of her performance. NIKO-NIKO smile~

However, the series becomes more lively later on especially with Honoka. I will say right now that her mood brightens this series quite a bit and can easily bring a smile to a viewer's eyes. If you're having a bad day, just watch her and that cloud of grayness will brighten. That's probably a weak analogy but her enthusiasm is what unites the group she works so hard to create. In fact, as the unanimous leader of the group, it is up to Honoka to save the school and make a name for themselves with the face of music. Perhaps, I feel she tries too hard though. I mean, in one episode, she particularly puts her own life at risk. It's how hard she tries to bring their ranks together especially when going up against competition. That' s the thing too because when you become a superstar, expect media attention and rivals heading your way. It's a tough, tough world Honoka-chan.

The story of the series remains weak but simple. It's about a group of girls coming together united as a music group to bring media attention. By becoming idols/superstars, they can spread their names and hopefully with what they can achieve will save their school. As simple as it is though, it is VERY easy to guess who will join Muse. It's not even foreshadowing but rather given directly with the opening song and poster. The series also doesn't avoid the typical "beach episode" that seemingly becomes one of those relaxing break. Furthermore, the seemingly focus on the idols themselves rather than what they hope to achieve becomes a backstabber in my opinion to the initial premise. Also, it seems that the competition isn't as intense as it originally looked.

Despite this though, I find the series to be a fun and entertaining watch with a cherry atmosphere. It's nice to see the girls tries so hard on a profession that is extremely difficult to make a name for. But what they're doing it for is not only for themselves but to save their beloved school. Now that my friends is what I call good-hearted. The performance themselves are also quite real and done well. In fact, some of the songs played in many of the episodes has that idol-like feeling. With those cute outfits, personalities, and outfits, these girls really do have what it takes.

In terms of visuals, Sunrise does them. And hey, who knew, they actually pulled a nice one out of their hats this time. From the outfits, character designs, and the way the girls dances, the visuals almost feel like they are coming to life at many occasions. I find this to be quite pleasing and interactive to watch as opposed to some CGI movements or forced movements. No, it's natural and the girls are putting on a live show.

The soundtrack, music, and voice acting is perhaps the most prominent feature of this series. After all, music is the main feature and premise of Love Live! The sound director, Yukio Nagasaki puts effort through and it's easy to hear and visualize what it's there. Of course, the performance that I mentioned before are also done beautifully. It looks natural, realistic, and the girls have fun doing it. At some occasions, viewers may wish they were right there with them on the stage. Then opening song, "Bokura wa Ima no Naka de" by μ's is performed by the idol group themselves and shows to the audience that they're serious about what they do. The many ED songs brings together a collage of various fun tunes featuring different mood settings. It's beautiful~

Overall, this underrated series is worth some time to invest into. In my opinion, this show is charming and so is Muse. Although its initial episodes were like a chore to watch, it later makes it up with the enthusiasm of the group along with the all cheerful Honoka-chan. It's also fun to watch the girls perform and hope that they succeed especially when they see some results on what they worked so hard for. Yup, they are aiming for success but at the same time having fun while doing it. Well, I hope you have fun while you relax, sit back, and enjoy what Muse do their best:

Entertain you. read more

Turning 17 a few weeks ago, I was interested in how and to what extent my facade of maturity could handle this time-rewind of returning to the love, pleasure, and laughter during my "tweens." Love Live! School Idol Project reminds me of a young female's dreams to redefine the destiny of her sacred home and even more sacred friendships, along with providing me with a new POV to such fears her mind has towards arriving there and devoid of any need for change. If I come off as too personal with this review, may it still be to your own request that allows me to stitch in the proper tech-like descriptions at the very end?

This anime series has no male characters. It's quite obvious that some people may find that already as a flaw, however, I ignored it in the first few episodes. Now, this is all my opinion... But the middle episodes were the most enjoyable, the least lacking of glamour or grace, the grand entrance into 12 year old paradise. Why? Well, none of the girls were complaining or worrying or erupting like how it was in the beginning. It seemed as if in an attempt to catch the attention of viewers, conflicts and "hug me, I'm a sad girl" scenes were dropping like bombs, and it was sadly too much. Thankfully, episodes 6-10 were when the group decided to get in the zone, practice and practice then rest and more practice, laugh with each other, and stick to their goal of performing. *cough* it was then, AT THAT MOMENT, when it finally came to me: Girls. Are. Queens. hahahaha, girls are meant to be popular. *cries*

Okay, so where the hell am I going with this? Any 12 year old girl wishes to be a famous and well-loved pop-star or diva or whatever stylish, talented thing she can get. Many close relationships between the main characters sprinkled on the idea that their devotion towards being School Idols were to bring justice to their school, to the School Idol franchise, or straight-up to themselves as Ms. Beautiful Beyonce. I know it's all so pishposh-y and lame, but how can somone not feel the same way as me after watching these nine girls whine and cheer like airheads throughout the show's entirety?

If you hated Hannah Montana as a kid, then you will hate this. If you liked it, then you still haven't grown up... Shows of that background only sharpen the knife of what makes children hunger for attention and appreciation to shallowness. The final episodes of Love Live! SIP included more dramatic events, but wow, the ending tripled in its effect of making me realize that jr. high school girls all aim to be the hottie of their class or the lovely trend-maker, shall I call it? The show ignored individuality, rejection, and nonconformity–all of which are topics that teens should be more pressed on.

If you're a happy gal, then go ahead and watch the show. If you agree with my comments and would like to see it for yourself, maybe it means that you and I share the same reticent feelings from teenage indifference.

Story: friendship, faults in working too hard, live for the support that comes from taking bigger steps

Art: cute teenagers, cuter outfits, more cute from their baby-like voices

Sound: lyrics that motivate you to want to be Beyonce

Character: cute teenagers wearing cute outifts that have baby-like voices

Enjoyment: you're going to cry if you're not yet Beyonce read more

This anime is exactly what you think it is, a bunch of really cute girls singing and dancing. That is what makes this fun, the music. The animation switches between its normal animation to CG during the performances and it goes great with it. The characters are really cute girls that fit almost every aspect of anime girls.The main character, Honoka, is a hyper happy-go-lucky girl who seems like a really hard worker and thats why you love her. What got me to like this anime was the music, its cute and catchy, and i love music like that. If you watch don't expect any real drama and especially don't expect any romance cause there wasn't any boys.
This is a good anime to watch when your bored and have a full day to yourself. read more

I suppose I could condense this whole review into the sentence ‘watch Idolm@ster instead – it does everything this anime attempts better’, but I’ll try to be a little more thorough than that. I know it would be best to review this anime strictly on its own merits, but as it shares so many similar traits with Idolm@ster it’s hard for me to avoid comparing them, so that will probably be inevitable…

Immediately, the biggest issue – and the most obvious one – with this anime is that there are too many characters, and too few episodes to fully flesh them out. There are nine main girls in this anime, but only thirteen episodes; and, as a result, a lot of the characters feel incredibly clichéd and two-dimensional. Some of these so-called ‘main characters’ actually end up feeling like side characters, as their personalities are never really developed, back stories are never revealed, and they don’t contribute anything to the plot; they just kind of exist as blobs of cute high school girls in pretty outfits, and nothing more (I’m looking at you two, Rin and Hanayo. Why do you even exist…?)

Of the girls who do get a little more screen time, their personalities are all fairly bland, unremarkable and cookie-cutter at best, and irritating and unpleasant at worst. We have our stereotypical genki girl who does everything with 110% energy (Honoka); the twin-tailed tsundere who can’t admit how lonely she is (Nico); the sweet, kind-natured but slightly ditzy girl (Kotori) – and, um… Akiyami Mio (Umi). Seriously; Umi is an exact carbon-copy of K-On’s Mio; acting serious and forcing the more lazy members of the idol group to work hard, but secretly being shy and something of scaredy-cat underneath. The two even look quite similar. And, my least favourite character archetype also appears in this show – in the form of the perverted girl who constantly gropes/threatens to grope her friends’ breasts (Nozomi); which is apparently supposed to pass as ‘comedy’…

Now, onto the story. The main problem with the story would be, that it moves too quickly – and this would be, because the anime is only 13 episodes long but is trying to juggle 9 main characters, it doesn’t have the time to spare to pace the plot properly. As a result, everything about the story – from the formation of their club, to the girls’ attempts to learn how to sing and dance, and their ‘steady’ rise to fame – feels sloppy and rushed. It takes only one episode for these characters, who have – presumably – never sung or danced before to suddenly be superb at everything; and this feels forced and unnatural. The formation of their idol group occurs far too quickly in the beginning of the show, in order to introduce the rest of the cast more quickly, and even then, it takes 8 episodes – more than half – of this series until everybody has been introduced properly; and then, by this point, the story seems to flounder around, unsure what to do, so two dull filler episodes involving a maid café and a trip to the beach are inserted, for no reason other than to see cute girls dressed cutely. It doesn’t add anything to the story, it doesn’t add anything to the characters – it just seems utterly pointless, and the time taken on these two filler episodes could have been used to greater effect to slow down the pacing at the start of the series. However, this would be problematic as it would then take far too long to introduce all the characters – so the best choice probably would have been to reduce the cast size to a far more manageable number, so it didn’t hinder the pacing of the show so much, or make the show 24 episodes long instead.

As for the art, it’s passable. Although some of the character designs are bland and look recycled from other anime (Umi-Mio in particular……), Kotori’s hair was really cute; and all of the colours in the show were fairly bright, suiting its light-hearted feeling. The hand-drawn animation during the dance sequences is fluid and nice to look at – and, personally, I enjoyed the CG animation during the dance sequences, too. Although the CG was fairly obvious, it reminded me of the graphics used in rhythm/dancing games like the Idolm@ster or Project Diva, so I thought it was fairly fitting and quite cute. Unfortunately, it is the large amount of characters that drags the art down once more – as, during scenes where all 9 girls are together, several of them always end up getting shunted to the background and looking slightly deformed, as animating that many characters would simply take too much time. Moreover, after all 9 girls have been introduced, they all share a lot of screen time with each other, which makes the animation problems all the more noticeable after around episode 7. This becomes especially glaring at certain points where Eri’s hair is very noticeably not drawn correctly or consistently. The art seems to deteriorate especially during the filler maid café/swimming episodes (which might, incidentally, be why I started enjoying the series less and less the more I saw of it…)

The music is fairly decent – not that I was paying too much heed to it. It’s cute and J-Popish, and the openings and endings are both nice, and I liked a few of the background tracks.

In conclusion… this really is a show that shoots itself in the foot by a) having far too many characters than it could handle and b) being too short to accommodate all of them, whilst having a decent plot at the same time. Everything about this anime suffers because it’s trying to handle too much at the same time; the amount of characters impacting the story and the art work quite noticeably. This is the point where I would like to compare this anime to the Idolm@ster – a similar show that handles many of the same themes as Love Live, with a lot of cute girls to boot; only it does it far, far better. In Idolm@ster, there are more episodes, so more time is devoted to developing the characters – and, moreover, the setting is not in a school, which makes it seem more original and enjoyable. Plus, in Idolm@ster, the creators knew to focus certain episodes on certain characters, leaving some of them absent altogether, so the anime never felt too cluttered, despite the large cast – which is something that doesn’t happen in Love Live, because once our large cast has been fully introduced, it’s there to stay for the duration of the show; to its own detriment. So, basically… if you want to watch an anime with cute girls trying to become idols, watch Idolm@ster instead. It’s far more charming, and executed far better. read more

The storyboard of this anime is good! i love how the students gather support to save their schools from shutting down in an extraordinary way of becoming an idol, the flow is not rush and easy to understand, some part is predictable but somehow they manage to maintain the impact.

though i would say the song and PV's they gave is quite amateur and not as exciting as the song from anime like K'ON, but i believe they can improve. If the artist involve willing to hear the public comment, getting a high rating and a full support is easy as a smirk!

Overall,, recommended! ^_^

Anyone else watched this really good Anime I for one loved it. its one of those anime where you watch it after having a shit day, you put this on and you find yourself smiling alway though each episode. It does have the plot for Tari Tari if anyone has seen that, but this one ends on a better note that Tari Tari. I also loved the songs that they sung, each one peaked my interest right away, especially Start:Dash (downloaded it ). If you like K-on and Tari Tari, i suggest giving this a try.

I gave it a 7 for story because its been done before read more