Love Live! School Idol Project

“You can’t fool television viewers with dancing girls and flashing lights” - Bob Barker

If there’s any pop culture entity that can dispute Mr. Barker’s claim, it is the idol genre. Prizing style over substance, flair over functionality, and pizazz over practicality, titles within the idol genre have discovered success time after time by appealing to its fanbase more than anything else. Unfulfilled character arcs, glacial pacing, stale voice acting, and even gaping plot holes can all be negated by the lavish concerts and energetic score from your standard idol anime. That’s not to mention the miracles that a moe pop idol can conjure; there are ... few tactics with greater financial success than inserting as many cute anime chicks into your show as possible. The idol genre has proven again and again that you really can fool viewers with dancing girls and flashing lights.

It is in this genre that Love Live has established a name for itself. Produced by Sunrise (Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass), Love Live (or “LL” for short) has developed into the biggest and brightest star of the idol genre, its massive fan base and overwhelming merchandise serving as major influences for its fame. Love Live is widely considered to be the greatest anime of its particular category, if not necessarily a critical darling. However, Love Live’s lofty status raises a few interesting conundrums: if titles within the idol genre are, by and large, bereft of depth and meaning, then how is one supposed to properly determine which is the greatest? Why should Love Love be considered the ideal representative of the idol genre? Do Love Live’s characters display more elaborate dances than that of Aikatsu? Does LL possess a greater sense of humor than The Idolmaster? I figured that actually watching Love Live would answer my questions so that’s what I did. To be perfectly honest, I harbored a few misgivings about Love Live, mainly that it's nothing more than meme fodder. However, the optimist in me believed that Love Live would be far more than that. With its charming story, LL would not only soothe my heart but inspire me to espouse its virtues as well.

While Love Live didn’t exactly confirm my worst fears, it is hardly a series that I’d recommend. My opposition to LL doesn’t stem from hatred or disappointment; rather, it is generated from the show’s lackluster execution of its most basic requirements. I’m more than willing to condone a mishap or two in the visual department but a grocery list of logical fallacies, one after the other, is something else entirely. For example, your show might have a problem when your story struggles to formulate a raison d'etre. Love Live is focused on three friends (Honoka, Umi, and Kotori) that desire to prevent their school from closing down but, beyond their adoration for it, they never clarify why they want to save it. If our protagonists are unaware of their cause for concern, why should I be invested in what they’re doing? Anywho, the trio agree that forming a school idol group is the best course of action (because why should you start donations and petitions when you can sing for a great cause?) but first they have to be approved by Eli Ayase, the Student Council President that’s overly harsh towards our aspiring heroines.

Will our main trio find a concrete purpose for saving their school?
Will Ayase change her dastardly ways?
Will Love Live start caring about itself?

These questions will be answered right after Love Live exposes you to the umpteenth shot of Honoka’s butt.

At its core, Love Live is a show that panders like no show has ever pandered before. Not only is there an obligatory beach/swimsuit episode but there’s also the rampant fanservice (especially early on), as well as an unbearable “chest grab” gag (it has to be seen to be believed). Couple that with Love Live’s excessive moe aesthetic (the sparkly eyes, the constant blushing, and the unnatural wiggling/squirming) and top it all off with the bizarre scene in episode 11 where a friend of Honoka’s rubs her head and scratches her chin like Honoka is some sort of dog. What you’ll get is one phenomenal crowd-pleaser of a show, a show that prefers to satisfy fetishes rather than concern itself with storytelling. The flimsily constructed plot accomplishes little beyond serving as an elaborate excuse to showcase the cuteness of Love Live’s characters; the cast is nothing but a hodgepodge of stereotypes. Outside of Honoka, Umi, Kotori, and Ayase, there’s the athletic one (Rin and her “nya”s), the intense rival (Nico and her ridiculous poses), the shy one (Hanayo and her idol obsession), the tsundere (Maki)..... and Nozomi, the Student Council Vice President that perpetrates the aforementioned “chest grab” gag (I’ve never seen a VP constantly undermine the President quite like Nozomi does in LL).

It will be of little surprise to you when I say that most of Love Live’s characters are inessential. Ayase and Kotori, however, are crucial to a certain extent but it’s Honoka and Umi that are the true outliers. Honoka is Love Live’s protagonist, a spontaneous do-gooder cut from the cloth of the spunky girl trope. What truly defines Honoka as a character are her over-the-top speeches (those bits of dialogue are downright painful in the amount of vapid positivity they exude) and her overwhelming ego (we’ll get to that later). Umi, on the other hand, is Honoka’s foil; she’s literally the only LL character with common sense, a realistic approach, and a complex personality. As Honoka’s best friend, Umi desires to aid her friend in achieving her dream but is, at first, adamantly against Honoka’s idea of an idol group because Umi rightfully doubts the effort that Honoka applied to it. Over time, Umi softens her stance on Honoka’s idea and of idol groups on general, even to the point where she valiantly defends the existence of idols in a climatic scene. On a surface level, Umi appears to be the stereotypical “quiet one”, that and nothing more, but she quickly endears herself as she wages war against her anxiety, her timidity, and the mob mentality that is an all-encompassing presence in Love Live.

Honoka lords over Love Live with an iron fist; there isn’t a single character in any medium, animated or not, that wields as much creative control as Honoka. If there’s one thing that you simply must know about Love Live, it’s that this show is gravitated entirely towards what Honoka desires and anyone that deviates from it is severely punished. Honoka advertises her viewpoints as essential for success and for the betterment of others but it’s obvious that she's only massaging her ego. For example, Umi wants to perform in concerts with a knee-length skirt (for several logical reasons) and, while any true friend would respect Umi’s wishes, Honoka, with Kotori’s help, secretly created skirts of shorter length. When Umi discovers this act of treachery, she's understandably upset but Love Live more or less remains loyal to Honoka’s scheme. It’s all very sickening; Honoka is this lionized ringleader of debauchery and deceit with the overarching narrative and Kotori as her partners in crime (Kotori is the ideal yes-man for Honoka; she possesses very, very few individual thoughts or opinions, existing only to blindly support Honoka). The in-universe benefits that Honoka receives from LL are simply absurd; she’s hailed as the idol group’s leader despite not proving herself as one, she’s praised for her unreasonable badgering of potential members, and her excessive pettiness is rarely admonished. The moments where Honoka is called out on her BS, like Ayase pointing out her arrogance or Nico questioning Honoka’s leadership, are so, so refreshing but they are few and far between. Is it too much to expect LL to treat its characters with fairness and rationality?

Buried deep within Love Live’s framework, beneath Honoka’s ego trip, beneath the gratuitous pandering, beneath the shallow characterization, is a redeemable project. It’s LL’s soundtrack that possesses most of this show's promise; soothing and refined, the OST is stunning in its versatility. Not only does Love Live’s score contain acoustic guitar songs and piano solos but there are also big band pieces as well. Although LL tends to utilize the same five or six songs over and over, the music is still a joy to listen to. However, when you’re not enchanted by Love Live’s score, you're left in awe by the artificiality of it all. Like a bouquet of silk flowers, there is very little authenticity in Love Live; its worldview is far too picturesque, too quixotic, for its own good. In the world of Love Live, conflicts are resolved entirely through dogged persistence, flashbacks galore, BS logic, and the power of friendship. Any chemistry issue within the idol group is negated by the characters constantly complimenting one another. “You’re the best!” “No. I’m not that special. YOU’RE the best.” NO; YOU’RE THE BEST!” I’m almost positive that roughly 70 percent of Love Live’s script is composed of exchanges like that.

When Honoka’s idol group wish to compete in the School Idol Tournament, the school director allows them to do so, no questions asked. She doesn't explain to them the financial costs of this decision to them nor does she schedule a meeting with their parents and teachers to determine whether or not this course of action is wise. If you thought that was an egregious example of a show bypassing logic for the sake of moving the plot forward, then, boy, do I have news for you. Love Live managed to land the jackpot in logical fallacies twice during the same episode. The first was the aforementioned example with the school director. The second? Well, allow me to explain. The director has permitted Honoka’s group to participate in the School Idol Tournament only if everyone within the group lands a passing grade on an upcoming test. Because of this, everyone is diligently preparing for the big day, with Umi, Kotori, Maki, Hanayo, and Nozomi tutoring the academically challenged members of the group, specifically Honoka (she possesses the intellect of a second grader despite being in high school because of anime logic). After everyone finishes their test, the idol group members convene to share their scores with one another. They quickly discover that every member passed; however, Honoka hasn’t shared her score with anyone. As the group begs her to reveal her grade, a few members express regret that their efforts will be worthless if Honoka failed. It is right then and there that Honoka dramatically unveils the graded test that was concealed behind her back. With the inspiring orchestral strings blaring in the background and a larger-than-life grin plastered on Honoka’s face, her graded test is revealed…. to have a score of 53.

I would like to note that, in Japan, a 53 is a failing grade, just like it is in the rest of the world.

As far as acts of stupidity are concerned, this was simply breathtaking. That Love Live treated Honoka’s score like some sort of grandiose achievement is not only absolutely hilarious but it’s quite perplexing as well.

What was the criteria for passing? To answer correctly more than half of the questions?
Did the teachers accept Honoka’s test as a passing grade because he/she pitied Honoka?
Was the teacher bribed by Honoka’s parents to pass her?

Now that I’m thinking about it, I know exactly why Honoka passed: because Honoka is Love Live’s protagonist and presenting her with a challenging obstacle is far beyond LL’s capabilities.

During Love Live’s final three episodes, the narrative attempted something new, gravitating towards poorly handled melodrama like a moth being drawn towards a burning candle. The result was the nadir of a thoroughly average title; Love Live’s emo phase flopped because it was overbearing (especially with the histrionic soap opera that was episode 12), because it was extremely jarring (completely antithetical to a series that, up to this point, was directed towards maid cafes and pillow fights), and because it disappeared the instant that Nico ordered Honoka to stop being angsty. Amidst all of the melodrama, Love Live’s finale introduced us to the highlight of the entire series, a truly beautiful scene with Honoka and Umi reminiscing on the stage of their first concert. It reminded me of what the underrated western Justified used to excel at, simply placing two characters in a given setting and allowing its masterful script to take it from there. With the aforementioned scene in Love Live, there was no overpowering song in the background, no special effects, and no unnecessary camera angles. It was just Honoka and Umi shooting the breeze. As I was watching all of this unfold, I thought to myself, “Why couldn’t Love Live bother to do something like this before?”

If Love Live really is the best that the idol genre has to offer, then I certainly won't expose myself to more of its ilk. Yes, Love Live possesses an excellent soundtrack, a lovable character in Umi, and a spark of untapped potential or two. However, that is hardly enough to deliver it from my wrath. Not only does this show have a repulsive love affair with its protagonist but it treats every other character with the utmost contempt. Not only does this show appeal to the lowest common denominator but it also insults your intelligence. Not only does this show enrage with its wasted potential but it also shoots itself in the foot with its constant tonal shifts. Vapid yet infuriating, erratic yet meandering, bewildering yet unenticing, Love Live is a jack of many trades and a master of wasting your time. Dancing girls and flashing lights cannot redeem this scrap heap of mediocrity.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably taken note of the rising popularity and plethora of idol related anime in the last few years. Any time I dare venture out to any anime convention that just so happens to be taking place within my proximity, I’m bound to be met with an onslaught of idol related merchandise from body pillows, those strange mouse pads that also have a pair of breasts on them, figures, CDs and even several cosplayers too – it’s inescapable! However, it’s not necessarily hard to understand why such shows garner such popularity, as they seem to be almost designed ... to be as marketable as possible. They feature an ensemble of cute girls, of various body types, whether that be the small loli (remember to tell the FBI that she is just a drawing when they come knocking down your door!) all the way to the plump and voluptuous, all the while having distinct personality types to appeal to every demographic of anime fan imaginable. Combine that with the fact that the girls are often made to wear skimpy and risqué outfits with incredibly small miniskirts, and sing generic, catchy pop-songs with their cute mannerisms, makes for a cultural phenomenon! Out of all the various idol anime out there, easily the most prolific and popular is Love Live; a franchise so popular over in Japan that in 2016 it was the highest grossing media franchise of that year, passing One Piece! (Damn, that’s a lot of scantily clad body pillows sold!) Over the last few days, me and a couple of other reviewer friendos decided to watch the entire series (for the most part anyway) all together, and while it was a very enjoyable experience to do so, even if we spent most of the time making fun of the show, I seem to have been left with rather severe PTSD, so much so, that every time I go to close my eyes to sleep at night, visions of each of the girls as they smile and dance appear in front of me. At first, it’s tranquil; calm, but as time moves along the girls become fierce and terrifying, laughing manically as I am trapped in this existential horrific nightmare in which even my own screams of pain and anguish cannot awaken me from the horrors that lay before me. I desperately want to run, to run from the visions, but I’m stuck; frozen in place as the idols slowly consume me and every fibre of my being…

Anywho, with that all said and done, and instead of contacting my closest therapist immediately, let’s form our own idol group, dress up in some revealing clothes whilst dancing and singing on stage, and dive into the world of Love Live!

Otonokizaku High School is on the verge of closing, due a lack of students wanting to partake in studies there, and is set to shut down after the current first year students graduate. As such, our main protagonist, Honoka, in an attempt to prevent the school closing down at all costs, decides to create an idol group, as a way to attract new students into attending said school, thus preventing it from its inevitable closure. The rest of the series sees Honoka recruit new members, as they all practice harder and harder to become great idols, intermixed with a touch of drama here and there. At the very least, Love Live’s set-up allows for some semblance of narrative stakes as the failure of the newly formed idol group, by the name of Muse, will bring an end to the school (even though we know as an audience from the get-go that the characters will succeed since there is nothing presented in the narrative that would suggest otherwise) and it also provides some kind of motivation and drive for the characters in the story. My main criticism of Love Live’s narrative is just how incredibly predictable and safe the entire journey is. It’s the most standard narrative structure one could possibly expect to see, and has been done so many times in so many other shows, that I can guarantee you that you would be able to identify each story beat and event that transpires in the show just by simply reading the plot synopsis presented on MAL. It genuinely feels like that whoever was writing the show, was simply ticking boxes off of things to include within the show. A hyper and energetic girl with good intentions who ropes everyone in and inspires them to try their hardest? TICK. An obligatory beach episode which is used for the purpose of training and seeing each of the girls in skimpy bathing suits? TICK. Drama that is introduced late into the narrative and is used more so to try and make the show seem more emotional than it is, whilst trying to manipulate the audience into feeling something for the characters, which will be ultimately resolved by the final episode leaving in a happy conclusion? TICK. As such, the narrative of Love Live feels tiering; a chore to sit through, as in my head I could easily map out the series and each one of the events that would transpire. It feels less like a journey you embark on with these girls as they try to save their school, and more so like a lecture in which you already know all the content the lecturer is going to go over, and you’re just listing them off in your head, waiting for them to get to the next point.

As I mentioned before, the show does have its share of drama, which I imagine was implemented into the narrative as a way to spice things up; to try and make things interesting, but it just comes across more so forced and trite than anything else, and the juxtaposition between the light-hearted hijinks an episode before, and scenes where everyone is yelling and fighting comes across as so damn jarring! Again, just like the complaints I talked about above about the narrative’s predictability, the drama in the show is foreshadowed in such a way that ignores the very notion of subtlety. After both Umi, Honoka’s friend, and Honoka’s little sister warn her not to overwork herself as she may fall ill, she then decides to go running in the pouring rain like an idiot, develops a fever, and ends up ruining everybody’s hard work as a result. The show expects me to feel sorry for Honoka, since the very reason as to why she developed this fever was because she was working so hard to prevent the school from closing down, but I simply can’t, as the character itself isn’t strong enough to illicit such emotions in me, especially since it’s so typical of these types of shows to go down this route that it leaves no impact on me! There’s even a scene in the show where the drama reaches a point in which Honoka gets bitch-slapped into the Shadow Realm after proclaiming her leaving of the group, whereupon I promptly laughed my ass off for a good ten minutes because I’m an immature dumbass. But, this disconnect from what the show expects me to feel, that is, emotional and probably shock from seeing one of the girls resort to physical violence towards her friend, against what I felt, that is, laughter at a moment where it obviously wasn’t warranted is the reason why I feel nothing for any of the drama they try and throw in the show, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that the characters are simply not strong enough to carry it. There’s just nothing really to sink your teeth into in this show in regards to the story, and, despite what some people may tell you, such as the entire show being inside one of the character’s heads (which would actually be kind of interesting as an idea now that I think about it) there’s nothing really of any substantial merit here (then again, the person who told me that has Eli as his favourite girl, so therefore his claim lacks any weight automatically).

Now, I’ve complained a fair bit about the narrative and why it feels so tiresome and dull, but this mode of storytelling is not necessarily a game breaker for me. I can forgive an anime in regards to its lack of overall narrative, as long as the characters, and the interactions between them are good; it’s the main reason why I liked Azumanga Diaoh after all. In that show, the narrative is simply about a bunch of high school girls whom progress through three years of high school, with them eventually graduating at the end, but the characters are all very likeable, to the point in which we grow attached to them as actual people, and the comedy in the show is strong enough to carry the entire experience. For me, the most important thing in most cases are the characters, since they hold the key to whether or not I care about anything the show prevents me with, and I think if the characters in Love Live were stronger, I could be more forgiving of the narrative and the whole show at large.

Much like in regards to the story, it felt like the writer constructed the characters in the most safe and predictable way possible, with two exceptions however. I’ve already somewhat alluded to Honoka’s character earlier in the review; she is the girl whom has the most energy, and acts as the driving force for pushing the story forward with her optimistic outlook to any situation and is the one that gathers everyone together, acting as the inspiration for the group through her hardworking attitude. She is not necessarily a bad character, just one that is not that interesting as a whole. As previously mentioned, she does run into some drama near the end of the series, but the small amount of development she embarks on, and character arc in general is still nothing remarkable as a whole. Umi, along with Kotori are best friends with Honoka and we see little snips of their past as children, which gives their characters a little more depth, although, and, again, is nothing to remarkable. They more so play the voice of rationality to Honoka in the series, with Umi being the shy and reserved type, but ultimately firm when the time calls, and Kotori…just being an airhead I guess. Whilst in the latter part of the series, she has to make a decision regarding her future, that being whether to move to America to study costume design, or to stay being a worthless school idol, which then cultivates in some more of that lovely, forced D R A M A that I adore, it feels inconsequential in the long run, since it’s pretty obvious that she will decide to stay with her friends since shows like this have practically programmed me to think as such.

Hanoyo and Rin add very little to the overall show and to be perfectly honest, I kind of forgot they were even there half the time. Rin joins the idol group just because Hanoyo does, and while Hanoyo’s reasoning for joining, that being because she wants to grow in confidence is a fine motivation to have, it’s barely developed or explored. Maki serves somewhat more to the overall story, as she can actually play the piano and sing rather well, which is then used for writing music for the group, and her Tsundere-esque personality can actually be kind of cute sometimes. Eli has somewhat more of a backstory than the rest of the girls, being that she was actually a ballet dancer in the past, which is then used to help the rest of the group and Noizoimi is one of the better characters, being as she has the most voluptuous body, and sexually harasses the other girls by grabbing their tits (if that’s not a well crafted character, then I don’t know what is). Nozomi takes on more of a mother role in the series, often dishing out random nuggets of wisdom to the girls whenever they’re in need of some, and that’s it as a whole. The characters in Love Live, for the most part, are extremely weak and cookie-cutter, so much so, that I’m struggling to even find anything to say about them. The only fun character in the entire show is Nico, and, yes, I understand at this point she is one giant meme, but she is the only character who has some semblance of a personality. She is an aspiring wannabe ideal, constantly switching between her idol persona, that being the adorably sweet Nico, with the catchphrase “NICO NICO NII!!” which me and everyone repeated so much during our watch that my PTSD is triggered every time I hear it. She’s like an antagonist in a way; the various things she does to try and prove that she is better than everyone else at various idol related things always blows up in her face, leading to some of the more entertaining aspects of the show (I also like to imagine to myself that Nico is a trap; a thought that brings me nothing but happiness).

The characters and their interactions are just fine as a whole. There are times when the chemistry between them does work, most strongest being during the beach episode I made fun of earlier since the girls are just messing around with each other (and Nico gets hit right in the goddam face with a beach ball so that’s always a plus), leading into some genuinely charming and funny scenes, particularly thanks to Nico as I just mentioned before, but the show really needed a stronger cast of characters to really pull itself together. That’s not to say that the entire show is without merit however. There were some scenes that I felt were kinda alright, such as in episode three, when, after the girls put all their efforts into practising for their first idol performance, and when the curtains go up to perform, they are greeted with only a few people rather than the full room like they were expecting, but despite that, they perform on anyway. Some of the facial expressions can also be pretty funny and charming too, such as when we’re first introduced to Maki after she finishes playing her song, she looks over at the door to see Honoka clapping profusely, all the while being cross-eyed; it’s a shot that never fails to make me laugh just because of how stupid it looks. As a whole, Love Live is just really bland and nothing of that much interest really happens as a whole.

In terms of animation, it’s overall pretty solid, with each girl appearing to be pretty damn cute with rather thicc thighs. I only mention the latter part due to the fact that the show has a tendency to have low camera angles, perfectly emphasising their thighs and butts (hey, I’m not a pervert for noticing this stuff, it’s the SHOWS fault for storyboarding it as such!) It does utilise CGI however during the performances scenes, which, to be perfectly fair, actually looks pretty good for CGI standards, but my main criticism is that they cut constantly between the CGI models and close-ups of with the traditional animation, and as a result, it ends up coming across as jarring; breaking the flow of both the dancing and my immersion. The music, as expected of a show all about music does the job, although I wouldn’t call it anything great as a whole. It’s generic, catchy pop that will forget about by the time the next generic, catchy pop songs comes on. Probably the only track that I really liked was Start; dash, mainly because some twat kept singing it during the Discord chat – what a strange guy that was…

In conclusion Love Live is just an incredibly bland show, and, despite a few moments here and there, is mostly devoid of anything of any substantial merit. I admit that I did enjoy myself whilst watching the show, but much of that enjoyment was indicative of watching it with everyone else. I’m sure if I watched this by myself, as I did with the last three episodes, I would be bored to tears! And this is coming from someone who typically enjoys cute girls doing cute things types of shows, but Love Live’s characters are just simply not strong enough, nor are their character interactions fun enough to hold the entire show together and becomes more so a chore to watch than anything else. I think now would be a good time to clarify that I do not begrudge anyone for enjoying this show, as the tone of this review may suggest otherwise, and, if anything, I’m envious. Envious of the fact that you could find so much enjoyment in something I found to be bland at best; envious that you can genuinely get excited whenever the girls begin any of their performances. As it stands, Love Live’s popularity confuses me, and I understand that I am critiquing an entire franchise with this statement consisting of a second season (which I’ve been told is much better than this) a movie, as well a spin-off series that also has its own sequel, but as an opening to the entire franchise, it’s incredibly weak, and doesn’t inspire much desire to go off and watch the rest of the series. At best Love Live is incredibly mediocre; at worst it gave me aids.

What does it mean to sell out? For many, this term is often used in a negative light, to suggest giving up artistic integrity for the sake of appealing to the fans and getting all the profits. The sad fact is that in this day and age, more auteur products that try to tell different stories from the norm don’t sell well, and that the mainstream is cluttered with copies banking on past trends for the sake of appeal. This applies to movies, TV, and even anime. Sure, there are exceptions to this, as there always are, but more often than not, I feel like ... those are the products that get extremely popular, regardless of what substance lies behind them.

Which brings me to Love Live. If you’re familiar with Japan’s anime culture post 2013, you’ve likely seen this franchise EVERYWHERE. It’s a continuous fad really, cute girls in costumes singing pop songs. In America, you’ve probably seen Love Live lines up at anime conventions all over, with tons and tons of merchandise (even incredibly creepy head masks of the girls). The franchise collectively took up THREE spots in the Top 9 of Japan’s most recent Top 100 anime poll, and even the spinoff series was voted higher than Cowboy freakin Bebop! Hell, one person I know in my personal anime club doesn’t even like the anime but plays the phone game to upgrade her idols like crazy!

As for me, I’ve always been hesitant about Love Live. While sometimes I am proven wrong with stuff like Konosuba or Madoka Magica, most anime tend to be exactly what’s on their cover, and the cover for Love Live looked overly bright, and relying on excess cute girl appeal with the name “Project” attached to the show basically saying “yup, we’re making this specifically to merchandise”, much like K Project which I have similar feelings on. LL just didn’t interest me, but I did like K-On, so when I finally went to check it out alongside many other anime reviewers, hoping it wouldn’t be a sellout series, I was....not entirely let down, but still given exactly what I expected. A show trying to push current trends, having writing on the level of your average Disney sitcom, and all and all just being incredibly basic in every department. While I could enjoy different parts of Love Live, and the production behind it is generally great, the show itself never rose above follower entertainment.

Some spoilers below:

It begins a young teenage girl named Honoka, finding out that GASP! Her school is going to close down! One day, when going to see her sister’s school, she sees a famous idol group, and dramatically DROPS EVERYTHING to want to be an idol just like them. She then pushes her two friends, and then overtime slowly convinces new members to follow the idol path, because maybe being idols will be enough to save their school, to the chagrin of the student council President. That’s the general synopsis, and if you’re familiar with this type of “save the school” storyline, you’re probably aware of exactly what to expect and go in knowing. Inevitably, idols will be preached, naysayers will be disproven, and the school will be saved, with everyone in the OP becoming an idol by the end. However, being predictable isn’t immediately a crime, as even great shows can be predictable, and sometimes unpredictable shows can have haphazard plot structure or nonsensical plot twists in hindsight.

So what does Love Live add to it beyond exactly what you’d expect to add some depth to the image? Mixed results.
There are some moments to this stock premise that feel like things actually add to the story. While Honoka’s motivation is as simplistic as it gets, a few of the other girls have pretty solid backdrops to want or not want to be idols in how it affects their character arcs. The name “Muse” they chose for their group was a clever choice in hindsight, including after a little revelation of how it was there. Another plus is the fact that the idols have to practice being idols, and some of the ideas behind this were kind of fun to see, like the whole “smile while you push up” thing, or the idea of holding poses for long amounts of time. They make it clear there is definitely some struggle and people who will crack at them.
Despite this though, almost all of it feels montaged through. While the effort is definitely there, perhaps seeing more of it actually happening rather than saying it happened would’ve worked better for the overall narrative, instead of saving it all for the showcases where they seem to do it perfectly in their robotic CGI sometimes bodies. This even hurts some of the comedy. One episode revolves around the infamous NicoNico trying to prove how hard certain tasks of singing, dancing and personal appeal are to the other girls, but they just feel like they do it with no problem at all to Nico’s chagrin. And we don’t see any of it. It makes it feel like the show saying that Nico’s persistence led to her whole group getting disbanded harder to believe.

Aside from that, most of what you get from Love Live is extremely vanilla and safe. After all, that’s what people have approved in the past, why change that image if you’ll make profits from it? Of course everyone sees the errors of their ways if they don’t want to be idols. Of course there’s a beach episode. Of course the girls dress up in cafe maid costumes, there’s merch to be sold of that! Of course some of the girls have surprisingly low IQ for high schoolers, not knowing what 5 squared is and randomly forgetting basically grammatical structure in one scene only for it to never come up prior or after, we need tests!
And of course, having your boobs squeezed as punishment, which was probably a low point for me in regards to running gags that weren’t funny the first time.

In contrast, the drama actually feels like the opposite. It’s not something spread out throughout the show, but rather, mostly transplanted entirely in the final episodes for the sake of it.

First off, it is only in the episode 11, the day of their festival, that it is stated where certain clubs are positioned is due to lottery. Such a thing was never stated before and feels inserted for the sake of cheap drama and about two minutes of crying. And then, immediately after, Honoka, in practicing, decides to do so alone, on a cold, dark, rainy night, gets a fever and collapses midway through the show because of it. Again, it makes it hard to care for the show’s drama when it feels so forced. Then, following that, more drama pours salt into the wound, and rather than thinking about a sub member, like many actual bands, Honoka decides to QUIT IDOLS FOREVER?! Jezz lousie....Thankfully the slap that follows felt incredibly satisfying in consequence, but everything at the end felt needlessly heavy in contrast to so much to bring something apart only to bring it together at the very end. The ending is admittedly nice and sweet, if a bit predictable, but the ride there was...to put it simply milquetoast up the hill and bumpy down the uptake partly both at its best and worst when it focused on character interactions.

The characters, in general, contribute to the vanilla feeling of the show by feeling like they were designed specifically to be merchandised, but there were some bright spots to ultimately make a passable bunch.

Starting with the lead, Honoka, she’s basically the self-proclaimed Red Ranger of the group, the one who brings the passion, cuteness, pushiness, and forced drama at the end. She could have a few likable moments as the lead character, though I feel like she needed to do more in terms of actual contribution. There’s an episode dedicated to who should lead the group, and Honoka, who WAS the leader, wins out because of how much she cared. Hooray. Also, to put it simply she’s....not very bright. Somehow not knowing what 5 squared is in 10th grade, and getting a 53 on her final exam WITH excessive studying. You could argue that justifies some of her decisions, but it did not make her incredible tendency to push everyone along for things that much less irritating, nor the fact that she’s rewarded in the end for being selfish.
She’s cute and marketable though, so I guess Sunrise succeeded somewhere.

Umi, her closest friend, is probably one of the best characters for being generally level headed and being the Only Sane Girl in a lot of cases, and her moment near the end in calling out Honoka was a highlight, but aside from a miniskirt line that reminded me of Fullmetal Alchemist, not much about her really stood out with me.

Kotori is mostly passable. She has two separate dramas, both of which are pulled out of nowhere and resolved quite cleanly. Not much of an issue the first time, very much so the second. Seeing her pursue her own passion and not be led back by Honoka’s selfish one would’ve been a more interesting setup for a possible season 2, but her character is generally fine.

Rin and Hanayo are basically pretty decoration (also merchandise). They get one episode of their own, which wasn’t bad, but then disappear completely. Rin also has the shy girl thing Kotori already covered. Moving on.....

To cover both Maki and Eli at the same time, both of them were against the whole idea of idol performances at first, and had me worrying that they would be seen as Strawmen. For those who don’t know, a Strawman is someone so steadfast in being wrong that they can easily be defeated by our protagonists. But in actuality, they actually had some of the best character growth of the bunch. Maki especially, the ending of Episode 10 was another highlight for the series thanks to her revelation. Eli annoyed me a lot at first in how much she seemed to be against them, and while her reason for developing felt a bit too convenient yet separate from idol-ing, her being a more big sister coach near the end was a bright spot and she was tied up well.

Nico, despite being infamous for her annoying meme catchphrase, was probably one of the better characters overall. She had a strong personality, and her point on memorable personas was pretty solid, even if it (and hiding in public) never amounted to anything of consequence. Props to Erica Mendez in the dub for giving her a lot of expression.

Ending off with my least favorite, Nozomi. She was by far the hardest to like. Not for being a stealth mentor, that’s something I can buy, but for basically being a gag machine. One gag. Specifically. That being, squeezing boobs of the girls as punishment. It became her only character thing for a while and the One Squeeze gag was not funny the first time yet was consistently repeated to my annoyance. Gotta have that fanservice right?

Everyone else was basically there to preach idolism, whenever it called for it. It was a solid effort to try and develop so many main characters, but I don’t think it paid off, as with some exceptions most show as pretty faces on toys more than anything else.

However, speaking of pretty, gosh darn it this show can look great in the best of times. Mecha oriented Studio Sunrise took the reins for an idol series, and when it wants to, the show really shines. Lots of bright colors, polished character designs, a large variety of different outfits, some gorgeous view shots and even the CGI used for the dancing is relatively high quality. Only real catch with the visuals, basic character designs being a minor thing, is the constant switch between 2D to 3D during the idol performances. I didn’t like when Luck & Logic did the switches for no reason and I’m not a fan of it here either. It’s jarring, and plays a weird eye trick on me when they change back and forth. Still though, great animation and pretty colors, adds to the image.

What’s more disappointing is the soundtrack. I get that I’m not really an idol fan, but aside from the OP, no particular showcase track really stood out at all. Maybe I’d have to relisten to them, but even Kyoukai no Kanata’s 1 idol song was more memorable than any of these. They weren’t bad, they did their job, just didn’t leave a strong impression which is disappointing for a music anime. The ED is perfectly fine and listenable, same for the background music. As for the dub, we have some solid performances from Erica Lindbeck as Eli, who brings an air of maturity to the role, Caitlin Glass as Maki, and even though I could be annoyed with Honoka’s character at times, relative newbie Marieve Herington captures just enough energy to make her cute in the best of times. Again, special mention to Erica Mendez for capturing the personality in Nico’s character. Everyone else did fine, nothing exceptional but nothing outright bad.

Conclusion

So, after all of this, would I consider Love Live a sellout? In some ways yes. The plot is incredibly shallow and sometimes forced, it relies a lot on pushing current trends to be a follower and the characters aren’t too much to show for, but I can’t deny that, once in a while, the show had an honest to god sweet moment, a moment where I excepted depth comes into play, or a charming scene. Despite how simplistic everything was, my enjoyment was decently high for a while. Then when the end drama sprouted its way into the final three episodes, I became annoyed more than anything else. Annoyed with what I saw unfold, creating substantial pathos before quickly having it brushed aside. It became a lot harder to emphasize with Honoka, and it didn’t end well for me despite the ending being sweet. Love Live has earnest effort, at times I can see that, but with exception to some moments and characters, feels misguided, perfectly in the norm, and hard to distinguish otherwise. It’s a show that failed to have me engaged and sadly fell too close to the disinterest that kept me away from it for so long.

Love Live is everything you think it is from the outset. It’s a high school drama centered on a group of adorable girls becoming idols. It’s nothing new, it doesn’t strive to change the game; yet it still manages to beat the competition as far as I’m concerned. And I’m not familiar with all the competition because I’m not a huge fan of this slice of life/music genre that seems to have cropped up after the success of that one episode of Haruhi Suzumiya and the massive success of K-On. All I know of is the first season of K-On, which is massively hyped up. ... I reviewed it pretty decently though and in retrospect…I think it’s because I’m a sucker for this moe garbage. I fall for the cute girls just as easily as the rest and even when reviewing some titles I seem to relax my rating because I enjoyed following the cute girls as they do cute things. I’m pathetic, I know.

Why am I admitting my being a moe blob? Because that’s how I get caught up in these types of anime. My thinking that Azusa was adorable got me watching K-On. My thinking Nico was cute got me watching Love Live. And while Azusa was my favorite character from K-On, Nico is actually not my favorite character from Love Live because she’s kind of a bitch. But that’s beside the point…

Love Live has the same type of set-up as many of these high school drama-y anime. Just like K-On, we follow an idealistic, loud, clumsy, and annoying girl. In Love Live, she decides to start an idol group due to the popularity of these groups around Japan. It’s all a last ditch effort to save her high school which could possibly shut down. She recruits her two best friends, a very boring moe girl named Kotori and the super shy girl, Umi. Umi doesn’t want to perform in a short skirt because that’s embarrassing. Meanwhile, she wears the school’s uniform skirt that, in reality, would be as effective a piece of clothing as not wearing a skirt at all.

They face all kinds of obstacles such as a really unsavory girl named Nico and a student council president who keeps pushing them aside.

Story-wise, it’s nothing new. The only real plus I can give the story is the fact that the girls actually practice. There are lots of parts that have nothing to do with practicing but the sheer fact that we are given a group of competent girls that are actually trying to succeed at what they are doing makes the anime more enjoyable and gives the audience more reason to invest themselves in the group and hope to see them succeed.

That being said, this is a music anime and I believe that every music anime I’ve ever reviewed I’ve stated one thing:

NOT ENOUGH MUSIC!

This is the exception. Love Live contains a surprising amount of music. This is an equivalent to America’s High School Musical so it better well have some goddam music. But unlike High School Musical, we’re not subjected to Ashley Tisdale’s nose, which makes this anime a big plus in my book. We’re also not subjected to understandable lyrics, which is probably why I enjoy the music of these types of shows. Let’s face it; the music in Love Live is garbage. It’s bubblegum pop, the kind of stuff you’d expect teenaged girls to write. The meaningless lyrics and nonsensical English words or phrases thrown in are a staple of these types of songs. But it’s what you’d expect from sixteen year old girls and I guess that makes it alright. Start: Dash is pretty catchy and while none of the music may be memorable, at least there is enough of it going around that you get excited for the next piece.

That being said, the music is accompanied by an idol performance most of the time. The animation of this show is usually pretty good with very adorable girls, great backgrounds, and good movement. But the issue comes with these dance performances that become very shoddy CGI mixed with traditional animation sequences. While the animation looks good, the sudden use of something akin to Miku Miku Dance is frustratingly out of place and gaudy. I don’t know who decided to change the style, but fire that person for season two. Please. No more computer animation.

Even with a big cast of really likeable and adorable characters it still fails to impress with anything new. Every character is a stereotypical something-or-other. You have the tomboy, the tsundere (really two of them), the well-to-do upper classman, the pervert, the ditzy leader, the shy and fraidy-cat friend, and the girl with very little personality. Working together, these characters are fun despite some having very little depth. The show does give most of them a good amount of focus and fleshes them out a bit, but they’re, once again, typical. The development they’re given is the usual.

Now for some smaller tidbits of hate: Why do all Russian girls in anime and manga have to be ballerinas? I’m looking at you Black Lagoon, Love Live, and Gunslinger Girl. Also, why the beach episode? If one episode contributed nothing to the anime as a whole it was the beach episode. Also, the drama at the end regarding Kotori was forced and very predictable. The entire outcome was extremely easy to see from a mile away because the same plot device has been used before to the same effects.

So where does that leave Love Live? Despite the story’s predictability, the characters predictability, and the MMD style dancing, it’s still highly enjoyable. Watching this band of girls come together and work hard to attain a dream is actually kind of heart-warming. The pacing is a little rough and the music isn’t the best but there’s a good amount of music and a good amount of fun to be had. It’s not an anime to be taken seriously, you hop on this ride to meet some new friends and enjoy their interactions and triumphs. It’s no masterpiece by any stretch, but for what it is, it’s a good, though flawed, anime.

I finished watching this anime with a friend on new year's eve, and while she liked it, I was less impressed. Before Christmas I had just finished watching Sword Art Online II and Akame Ga Kill, so after Christmas I was still at a high from those two amazing anime. So maybe it's because I'm comparing it too heavily to other anime, but 'Love Live! School Idol Project' did not impress me very much.

Story - The story was clear and concise. Save the school from closing down by starting a school idol group as a publicity stunt. While it was easy to follow, it ... was also easy to predict. The show gave little in surprises or excitement and was just too basic for my liking. But I must commend them for staying on track. A short anime like this has to stay on track, because they don't have time for fillers and side stories. While the story was basic for my liking, I must admit there were times when I enjoyed the simplicity, when I knew what was going to happen, and it happened, it was kind of refreshing and I could sit back and enjoy the show.

Art - The art in this show is beautiful. 'Love Live! School Idol Project' is a slice of life anime, and therefore you can't expect real artistic spectacles like unique settings or amazingly detailed weapons or spaceships. It is standard for this genre; school, arcades, modern towns and students. The show is detailed though, and you don't get any faceless people in the crowd which is nice. The only place this anime really stands out in terms of art is the character design. I am not going to hide it, I thought the girls were stunning! They all had lovely hair and each girl had a different colour which distinguished the members of the group nicely. It was also clear that they were drawn with the purpose of being attractive, that typical pretty school girl look you get in a lot of slice of life anime. I would also like to commend the show's artists and directors for omitting panty shots, this show manages to avoid fanservice and for that I thank them. It really is unnecessary.

Sound - There isn't much to say on this. I watched the subbed version, and so the Japanese voices were the same old voices you get in anime. The girls all sounded fairly similar, young and cute and girly with few exceptions. The voice acting was on par, and I have no complaints there. The music was pretty good, not to my taste, but if you like the genre of music, idol music, then you'll probably like this. Personally I preferred the music in shows like Kids On The Slope and K-On! but hey that's just me. The music was catchy and upbeat and so no complaints there either.

Character - I rated the characters a 5 because I felt they were way too shallow. Love Live! is only a 13 episode anime, so maybe that was the reason, but I felt they could have developed the characters further. I feel like I hardly know them. Not a single character had back story and the only way we got to know them was through their interactions with the other members of the Idol group during the course of the anime.

Enjoyment - It was alright. Like I said in my introduction, I wasn't very impressed. I would only recommend this show to people who had expressed to me that they like idols or are really into music anime. But other than that, there's no reason to watch this show. It was a fun ride, with a few laughs here and there and the way the girls smiled throughout most of the anime had me smiling as well. Those damn contagious smiles :D

Overall - I am rating the show a 5 for mediocre. It's nothing special, but also it does do it's job. It's an idol show, and so people who like idols and the music that goes with it probably don't care that the story is generic and the characters are shallow.

A review about a GREAT anime. Recommend reading the whole review.

When I first heard about Love Live! School Idol Project, the name got me going. Is it a romance anime or a idol anime (maybe even both). Turns out it's just a idol anime.

Story: 3
I got into the anime very quickly after the first two episodes. They were what kept me watching, they were definitely not boring and didn't lack of many attributes that keep the audience from getting bored. Mainly the anime's structure was definitely strong in an interesting way. Love live didn't have an amazing story line as it fell off ... near the middle of the anime drastically and went nowhere but somethings kept me from watching it. The idol group (Muse) kept pursuing their dreams and becoming better while recruiting more members to their group. Muse's goal is to become popular, famous and successful, and hopefully one day surpass Arise (idol group) in the ranking ladder. Just that thought in mind was really exiting and i couldn't wait to watch every other episode.

Art: 7
The art is not so unique that you can recognize too easily from other anime's. What makes an anime's art work good is when it's original. I just feel like this art-style is being overused. Doesn't go too much into details.


Sound: 9
Sound is the strongest part of this anime. Stunning! Obviously, it's an idol anime. But this takes a step further from other idol. When the characters sing, it's so good it gives me the goose bumps! The reason i gave it a 9 was sometimes, the characters sound a little over-exaggerated and doesn't fit all too well with a certain character, but rarely. I really have not much to say other than "great!".

Character: 6
The characters are very unique from each other. Giving the anime a lot more space of room to toy with because there are 9 different characters! The main important characters are Honoka, Kotori, and Umi.
The rest are more of a side character but are each a big contribution to the idol group and the series with each character being important in an episode.

Enjoyment: 7
Enjoyable in two different aspects, comedy and singing. Love live gives me a smile in my face when i'm watching because in each episode there is something funny and not all anime's have that. The Singing is a big factor when reviewing this anime because it is an idol based anime. Each music is great, and they really mean a lot when singing.


OVERALL: 6.4
Didn't read because it was too long?
Summary:
-Story:3.
Had a good start but fell off in the middle of the series. Didn't have a good an original goal.

- Art:7.
Was good but wasn't original. It was good when it transitioned into 3d models when performing concerts but didn't have too much shading, effects...etc.

-Sound:9.
Obviously an idol anime would put itself in a good position when graded with sound. Really good and i can't get enough of their sound tracks!

-Character:6.
Each character part-took a good role in each episode leaving no characters mysterious and successfully gave each characters a good personality. Lacked of giving character with more time.

Enjoyment:7.
Love live gave one more thing just than an idol singing. Comedy. Each end of an episode would leave me with a good smile and wanting to watch more.

Disclaimers: Spoilers, this review covers the Love Live! School Idol Project anime series, which means season 1, 2, and the movie, and this review will be a bit more personal than your typical review. This review is also long as fuck, and there will be a spoiler free TL;DR at the end.

Love Live sucks major balls.

Upon viewing my profile, one would probably witness a few Love Live memes here and there, a shit ton of Love Live characters in my favorites list, and possibly a Love Live profile picture, although I constantly change it so it depends. Seems like a typical Love Live fag ... to most people. However, believe it or not, I think Love Live is pretty god damn bad. Or at least, I thought. If anything, the only things that I actively like about it are the characters, usually because they are extremely entertaining, endearing, and lovable (with the exception of one character, which I will get to later.) The story of Love Live is mediocre at best, and one could argue that the story is completely garbage. With cliche and cringey moments, overly sappy melodrama, and with uneven character development to boot, one shouldn’t watch Love Live for a quality story. I can’t really say anything about the music of Love Live, since music is like the most subjective thing in the world, but I don’t like most idol music. There are only a few songs that I can listen to multiple times, but most of the time, I can barely sit through the songs even once. The art and animation are subpar as well, especially when the camera zooms out and the characters become barely recognizable sketches. So why do I still like Love Live so much, despite all the shit that it has?

After a VERY lackluster first season, I sat down and reflected on the past 4 hours that I wasted on this show and thought to myself: holy shit, I had a good time. Why is it that such a flawed story is able to leave me in such a satisfied state? No way is it because “it’s so bad that it’s good,” nor is it because “you’re a dirty memer Yuni, and Love Live is full of dirty memes.” I came to the conclusion that it’s because of how memorable Love Live as a franchise is. Despite my cringey experience watching the first season, I found myself thinking about Love Live constantly afterwards, and not about how bad the drama was handled or how gimmicky and cliche the characters were, but of how catchy that one song I actually liked was or how… gimmicky and cliche the characters were, but in a good way! I would then get flashbacks to a random scene, such as Kotori acting like a foreigner, Nozomi fondling little boobs, or Honk Honk doing the seal clap in episode one. Little scenes like that, although usually just comedic skits or filler, gave me such great satisfaction that I felt like it was worth sitting through Honoka dying on stage for no reason. Even so, I still wasn’t ready to say that I liked Love Live at the time. I simply liked a few of the scenes, a few of the characters, and a few of the songs. Everything else was still meh.

Then Season 2 reared it’s ugly head and that’s when my heart felt all the doki dokis. When it comes to “sequels that drastically improve the franchise’s quality,” people always think of Clannad After Story, or maybe Little Busters Refrain. I’d like to add Love Live 2nd Season to that list, for I never knew a sequel could change my opinion of a franchise so quickly. Not only was the drama much more tolerable, but it made me fall in love with the cast so hard, that even the ones I borderline hated during season 1 were perfect angels in my eyes. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever loved a cast this much since Aria. And I fucking adore Aria. Then there was the movie, which not only depicted Manhattan pretty goddamn well (I’m a New Yorker), but it also sent off μ's the same way they were introduced to us: with a long drawn out bang.

Story:

Love Live seems like your typical “AH! Dire situations and sparks of inspiration cause me to drag my friends into something out of the ordinary, something that causes us to start out as underdogs as well slowly rise to the top through the power of friendship!” kind of story, and that’s basically what it is at the surface level. However, by the end of the story, the viewer doesn’t give a fuck about whether or not μ's is gonna succeed in their next concert, instead, they are desperately holding on to their doki doki-ing hearts in anticipation and preparing themselves for the inevitable: Honk Honk, here comes the feels train! This is what causes Love Live to be labeled as a completely clone of K-On, a show where a group of girls are in a similar situation: they want to do something out of the ordinary and strive to improve, however the story really isn’t about that life. It’s all about the passage of time, and Love Live makes it extremely apparent in its narrative that time is not only limited, but running out FAST! This is what separates Love Live from the other passage of time anime, as while K-On and Aria are taking their time sipping tea and rowing gondolas, Love Live is dancing along at a breakneck speed. The thing about passage of time anime is that it’s really only effective if you love the characters. Both K-On and Aria start out with their characters in a very friendly environment, with all of the characters being lovable from the start and the only conflict resulting from the natural clashes between their personalities, such as Azu-nyan being put off by Yui’s laziness, or Alice being mad at Akari’s lack of IQ. Also keep in mind that passage of time anime usually have a manageable cast of main characters, with K On having 5 and Aria having 3 (4 if you count Alicia, and 6 if you count the other fairies).

However, Love Live has a massive 9 main characters, some of which were outright hostile cockblockers during their introduction. You would think it would be impossible for a story to take 9 characters, some of which are shown to be bitches, and somehow make them lovable by the end. That’s what I thought too at the end of season 1, where I was only fond of a select few characters. This is a big reason why season 1 was a fairly lackluster season, it failed to properly show that appeal of some of the characters. This isn’t solely due to the fact that some characters were prioritized over others, it also has to do with how poorly the drama was handled. The words that come to mind are: overly exaggerated, sappy, bullshit. The realism in Love Live is non existent, but that is to be expected. Anyone who expects realism in a show like Love Live needs to get a reality check. That doesn’t change how unnecessarily over the top some of the drama during the first season was, as well as how unbelievable some of the drama was resolved. Even if realism is limited, it still has to be believable, or at least, not bullshit.

What the 1st season does correctly is a few instances of character drama surrounding a few particular characters, those being Honk, Kotori, Nico, and Eli. For Honk, her extremely typical main character attitude actually works against her in scenarios that other anime would write as beneficial. For example, her focus on competing in Love Live actually ends up damaging her relationship with her friends instead of strengthening them, and while some events surrounding this drama and the resolution are iffy, it still gets the job done. Kotori also breaks the mold when she goes against what her character trope would normally do: hurt her best friend. Usually depicted as the typical friendly deredere, Kotori was revealed to actually be a very conflicted character whose problems end up hurting those she loves, which is contradictory to her normal character. Both Nico and Eli are also fleshed out as characters who chased their dreams and failed, which shapes them into the hostile characters that they were introduced as, and while Nico's hostility was shown to just be natural, Eli's hostility was much deeper, albeit the resolution was stupid. Love Live's major problem in season 1 is that the drama is there, and for the most part it isn't exactly bad drama, but it has absolutely no idea how to either execute or resolve it in a believable way.

Hmm, it would appear that Honoka is very ill and not exactly in a good state to sing and dance. What do? The overly protective Kotori and the wiser Umi would stop Honoka from over exerting herself, causing the performance to be cancelled, the fans to be disappointed, and Honoka would learn her lesson and taste what disappointing her fans would be like. That would be some nice development for her character! But wait, that’s not what actually happens.
What actually happens is that Honoka insists on performing, so she does. Honk has run out of PP for her dance moves! Honk used Struggle! Honk hurt herself in recoil. Honk fainted. And that leads to Honk being a depressed crybaby, μ's dropping out of Love Live, Honk nearly quitting the school idol thing, only to get bitch slapped by Umi, which leads to Honk not being a crybaby, which leads to literally no one learning anything and Honk continues to do stupid shit cause why not.

So Season 1 ends with μ's saving the school, and μ's miss their chance to compete in Love Live. Oh well, beggers can’t be choosers right? At least they completed their initial goal! As a result of her efforts, Season 2 starts with Honk being chosen to be the student council president. While this seemed like an unnecessary thing to do, this was the beginning of Love Live’s redemption! It’s all (mostly) positivity from here on out! Remember when I said that Love Live is a passage of time show? The moment Honk becomes student council president marks the beginning of this theme. While subtle, it did expand on the running out of time problem, as being the student council prez resulted in a lot of schedule conflicts between idol practice and council work. But wait, idol practice? What are they practicing for? A 2nd Love Live has been announced! With saving the school out of the way, μ's can finally focus on their real goal.

It is here, pretty early on in season 2, that it is made clear that time is running out. This pressure of time, first mentioned when it is made clear that the 3rd years are graduating soon, is constantly brought up, both within the show itself and within the viewer’s minds. At first it’s through subtle things, such as the previously mentioned schedule conflicts of being the student council prez, resulting in usually humorous but still important bickerings between Honk and Umi. A sense of responsibility is placed on Honok’s shoulders, as a leader of the school and of μ's.

Season 2 also makes it clear that time is passing by through the use of specific events, such as Halloween, Christmas, New Years, etc. Many episodes in Season 2 are based around these timed events, and result in a not-so subtle flow of time. By the way, the Halloween episode is one of my favorites, as it has some of my favorite skits in the entire series. Season 2 also uses this time to flesh out characters that didn’t have much spotlight in season 1, and while these moments of character development were touching, it was all the characters and their interactions with each other that made me adore every single member. Time didn’t just flow, it helped the girls grow to love each other. Episode after episode, you could tell that their friendship was subtly growing, and it’s all about the little things. Maki agreeing with Honk sometimes, Eli and Nozomi showing their more innocent and sensitive sides to their kouhais, even the most humorous of skits showed that the teamwork and bond between the girls of μ's were ever growing.

While the urgency of time running out is at first caused by μ's trying to do something before a deadline, eventually it became much deeper than that. While the story kept its style of μ's trying to get something done before a specific time, it became clear that both the characters and the viewers were actually bracing for the real deadline: the time when the 3rd years would graduate, and μ's would be split apart. This is what the entire series was building up towards. As the cliche line goes, all good things must come to an end. Even the mightiest of rivers empty out into the calm endless sea. Even a floating leaf in the wind will land someday. Whatever sappy phrase you want to use, this theme is so especially present in Love Live that it’s undeniably powerful. In fact, μ's spent so much of their time bracing themselves for this inevitable end that they didn’t even realize that they were missing an important answer: what do they want their end to be?

This is the entire theme of the finale, the movie. The movie is the perfect mix of cute grills doing cute things, cute grills dancing in cute ways, and borderline psychological drama. It even has hints of supernatural elements, which were used in very effective albeit confusing ways. After becoming much more famous than she could ever imagine, with expectations placed on every part of her being, Honk’s internal conflicts were at an all time high. To a normal viewer, the right answer isn’t clear at all. In fact, many people could have different answers when placed in Honk’s situation. There really is no right or wrong answer, and the decision that μ's came to at the end wasn’t right or wrong either. It was simply what they wanted. And that’s how the passage of time works. A very straight forward story, with a not so straightforward and possibly even thought provoking end. Even so, despite the melancholic passing of time and the internal conflicts, the ending was ultimately a positive one, and I can’t help but feel the ultimate satisfaction.

Characters:

Easily my favorite part of the franchise, as well as probably the make or break for anyone watching Love Live. To some, they are simply gimmicks and memes who are mildly entertaining once in awhile, and to others, they are precious waifus that we must protect from any sort of harm. What do I think? I think they are precious gimmicky memes that are mildly entertaining once in awhile, and must be protected from any sort of harm. So of course I will be going through all of them.

Hanayo: Despite the fact that she's at the bottom of my list, Hanayo is probably the most well written character in LL in terms of characterization. The point of school idols is that any normal girl can be one, and that's the whole theme surrounding Hanayo. She doesn't stand out at all, in terms of personality nor appearance. As a result, she views school idols as an unreachable goal and worships them from afar. The fact that Hanayo joined Muse in the first place is a groundbreaking development for the group and idol shows as a whole, for it highlighted the whole point of school idols. Also, her rice obsession is one of the most relatable parts of the show. As a Chinese person, rice is my entire being.

Rin: My appreciation for this character is always exponentially increasing. Rin is insecurities personified into a tomboy cat character. Unlike Hanayo, Rin has had experiences of standing out too much, having being teased for her femininity despite her short hair and boyish attitude. This caused Rin to embrace this boyish attitude and energy in order to separate herself from her insecurities. Rin was very hesitant in joining Muse since being school idols is hella girly and she feel like her lack of femininity will cause her to bring the group down. However, her joining the group ends up helping her come to terms with her insecurities, and her episode was one of the most heartfelt episodes in the series.

Maki: Maki's tsundere personality comes off less as a mental illness and more of a result of her upbringing. Due to being a sheltered rich girl, Maki isn't a tsundere cause she's mean, but because she's socially retarded lol. However, joining Muse helped her shed her awkward self contained self, and Maki is one of the few tsunderes who returns the favor to those who helped her break out of her shell. After being coaxed out by her senpais, Maki thanks them by helping Nozomi come out of her shell as well, and she made Nico out of all people cry. Her personality is also very similar to mine, as a withdrawn socially awkward yet passive aggressive sasser who isn't afraid to look down on you if you piss her off. I also share some frustrations she has when it comes to songwriting, for I am a songwriter myself, and I also say "what the fuck was that" a lot.

Honk: Honk is one of the more well written genki lead characters, due to the fact that her genkiness isn't one dimensional nor predictable. Her genkiness isn't always positive, as some of the time it's actually her own selfishness, and her overly determined nature actually ends up damaging her relationship with her friends. Honk isn't the perfect happy go lucky person she appears to be, as she is almost constantly internally conflicted and ends up coming off as an asshole more often than not due to her selfishness. Of course, Honk isn't the most consistent character, as her IQ switches between 1 and 100 constantly, but she's definitely deeper than what people give her credit. What makes her relatable in this regard is that she means well, and most of the time doesn't even know she's selfish. This also creates GREAT conflict drama between her, Kotori, and Umi, as Honk's characterization isn't just due to her own characteristics, but also her two closest friends.

Kotori: Kotori comes off as your typical airhead deredere, except she does what no other deredere is capable of doing: absolutely destroying her best friend's feelings. Her tendency to spoil Honoka is seen as cliche by many, for many think it's cause she's too nice of a character, but it's actually her own selfishness that is causing her to be so nice. Her refusal to hurt her friend's feelings isn't just cause she wants the best for her, but because she is too conflicted and unwilling to break bad news. Due to her selfish refusal of doing the right thing, her niceness actually ends up hurting Honoka even more than she could ever have imagined. Kotori is seen depressed more than people think, and her habit of putting on a deredere demeanor isn't because she cares, but because of her own flaws and conflicts.

Umi: Umi on the other hand is the opposite of Kotori. She calls Honk out on her bullshit constantly, and her tough love is a turn off to many. People view her as a sociopath due to her constant bullying of Honoka, but due to being brought up by Asian parents, I see the true intent behind Umi's savage nature. Umi's anger and unstable emotions show me that Umi probably loves her friends more than anyone else. She isn't afraid to completely fuck someone up if it's for their own good. Of course, since Umi is a hardcore dandere, she can have her fair share of selfish moments, but in the end, no one gives more shits than Umi does, even if it looks like she's gives no shits about your feelings.

Eli: A phenomenally multi dimensional character, a lot of flaws surrounding Eli are actually the story's fault. Eli is the ultimate cockblock in the beginning, and boy did I hate her. This made her redemption as a character all the more heartfelt, as I ended up loving Eli by the end. While the story portrayed her as a stern white knight, who's reasons for despising Muse is due to her lack of confidence in them when it comes to saving the school, it eventually became clear that Eli's distaste actually stems from her stubbornness and pride. As an ex-professional dancer, she views Muse's activities as mere games and looks down upon them constantly. The flaw behind her eventual opening up is that the members of Muse were way too lenient with her. This bitch thinks y'all are trash and you're gonna forgive her just like that? Yeah. Again, this isn't due to Eli's character, this is due to Season One's atrocious writing.

Nozomi: Nozomi takes the spotlight as one of the easiest characters to like, both from a characteristic and development stand point. She's the smug mastermind. Her Washi washi may turn off a lot of people, but hey, the author is a Yuri author. Cut her some slack. What made Nozomi even more likeable was when her past was revealed. Nozomi used to be extremely shy, contrary to her extremely calculative nature we see now. Her friendship with Eli and their close bond is what caused Nozomi to transform into what she is now, and that's just a testament to the canon ship that is NozoEli. Seeing Nozomi open up to the rest of Muse and allowing her true shy nature to slip in once in a while humanizes her exponentially.

Nico: Nico is the most controversial character. Very rarely do you see someone who thinks Nico is "alright." Nico will usually find herself on the very bottom or the very top of people's rankings. I'm one of the latter, Nico is one of my best girls, but my reasons for liking this monstrosity is different from most people. My reason doesn't just boil down to "she's funny" or "she's a meme." First of all, let's be honest: Nico is a fucking piece of shit human being. She's the type of person you'd block on all social media outlets. A real life Nico would have no friends, and I learned that the hard way. You see, Nico is a character that chased her dreams with everything she had, and failed. She didn't fail because "the world is unfair." No, Nico deserved to fail. Nico failed because she failed to see how selfish she was, pushing people beyond their limits without them wanting to. She failed because being a school idol is a team effort and she only thought of herself. The reason she failed is nobody's fault but her own. As someone who's been chasing their dreams for ages, experiencing failure after failure and blaming it on the world, only to slowly realize that I'm the one who's failing myself, seeing this part of Nico made me cry. Not gonna lie, this side of Nico destroyed me. It didn't help that when I was younger, I was also very foul mouthed and hot tempered. I'm one of those real life Nicos. Nico's shitty personality persisted throughout the series, such as lying to her siblings to make her look good and disrespecting the rest of Muse. That's because leaving behind your selfish self is hard. Extremely hard. Nico's flaws lasted all the way till the end of the series, and hell, she was still an annoying shitter at the end, but that's cause this is realism. People don't change at the drop of the hat, and some people don't change at all, but Nico still accepted it and tried to change till the very end. Nico's determination is honestly inspiring, and that drew me to her character as well.

Nico is one badass motherfucker.

A cast full of characters that naturally clash with each other, yet even so, they grow with each other to the point where every single character is irreplaceable. The characters bicker with each other constantly, yet their contrasting personalities somehow work with each other. In fact, the characters themselves realize that their drastically different personalities are what make them stand out from other idol groups, and it is because of how irreplaceable every single member of μ's is that causes them to disband their group at the end of the series.

Art and Animation:

CG is distracting, and while Love Live’s CG is much better than your typical anime, it’s still, well, distracting. This is especially so during some concert scenes when it rapidly switches between 2d and 3d animation. However, I’ve witnessed some horrible CG in my life, so I grew to appreciate Love Live’s relatively tolerable CG. The 2d animation and art during the actual show isn’t very impressive either. While the character designs by themselves are goofy in their own way and eventually grew on me, the animation and art quality is very inconsistent, ranging from pretty good to downright despicable at times. This is especially apparent during scenes where the camera zooms out, and the characters become barely recognizable sketches, with weirdly scaled facial features and bodies.

One thing that Love Live excels at however are the facial expressions. These goddamn facial expressions are golden, and are used to support both comedic and serious situations. There is a lot of emotion behind these facial expressions, and you can tell what a character is thinking just by looking at their face. You can tell when Eli is done with someone’s bullshit just by looking at her unamused stare. Even the characters are able to react to situations based on another character’s facial expression, such as Kotori constantly wrecking Umi in cards due to Umi’s lack of a poker face, or Nico knowing that her boobies are in for a rough time due to Nozomi’s rape face. The majority of Honk’s silly nature is expressed through her facial expressions, such as her seal clapping and her amazing expression after getting flicked in the forehead by Nico. You can also see the build up before someone starts breaking down into tears, first by their obvious attempts at holding back the tears, until finally you are greeted with the ugliest crying face ever.

Music:

What makes the music in Love Live unique is that only people who watched the show will probably listen to the music. Idol music is very niche and before watching Love Live, I wasn’t into idol music whatsoever. I thought it was too simple and too cringey. While I still think that way about most idol music, there are a few songs that I actually listen to a decent amount nowadays, and not because they are different from the usual idol music in the show, but because of the context behind the pieces.

Songs like Snow Halation and START DASH!! didn’t appeal to me by themselves, but once I witnessed the context behind those two pieces in the show, I started to like them. Also, Love Live uses its idol music in ways that if you like the show and the story, you will like the music. Stuff such as using the OP theme of the first season as the encore for μ's’s “final” concert, and using Aishiteru Banzai, a song we heard in the first episode and a personal fave of mine, as the graduation music in the final episode of Season 2. Love Live puts a lot of emotional connection to a lot of would-be average songs, and that’s what makes Love Live’s music memorable in the end.

Reflection:

Love Live is bad and you should feel bad, but feeling bad has never felt so good. Easily one of the most satisfying series I’ve ever watched, Love Live fulfills a lot of simple wishes, such as seeing a group of friends start from humble beginnings and becoming international stars, seeing even the coldest of bitches open their hearts to become lovable characters, stuff like that. Stuff that has been done over and over again, but for some reason you especially want it to happen to these 9 girls. And then after an emotional scene, they bring it full circle with the first song you ever hear. Stuff like that makes the first time watching it unforgettable, and makes the first time rewatching it that much more spectacular.

At least, that’s what happened to me. Not everyone will experience the same things I did, in fact, most of you probably won’t. However, Love Live is definitely one of those shows that has the possibility of changing your life. When you ask for better or worse, I’d probably have to lean towards the latter, for some people then fall into the idol hell known as School Idol Festival, and I hear that there is no escaping that place. And even if you don’t get your life changed, at least you indulged in some top quality memes.

TL;DR:

Story: Love Live sucks balls, way too sappy and melodramatic. However, it eventually drops this and becomes a passage of time anime to the likes of K-On, and the drama becomes more natural with positive outcomes.
Characters: Waifus? Memes? Why not both? A cast of characters that constantly clash with each other, yet eventually become a team where every member feels irreplaceable.
Art: CG. And shitty artwork when the camera zooms. Other than that, it’s ok, and the facial expressions make everything daijoubu.
Music: Will either make you cringe or cry a river of tears, especially once you know the context behind some of the songs.

Individual Ratings:
Love Live! School Idol Project: 4/10
Love Live! School Idol Project 2nd Season: 7/10
Love Live! The School Idol Movie 7/10

My favorite part of the show: Characters.
My least favorite part of the show: How they handled the drama in season 1.
And of course, order of grills (Keep in mind that I like all of them):
Umi > Honk > Nico > Kotori > Eli > Maki > Rin > Nozomi > Hanayo.

Fun fact! The Love Live franchise as a whole, including Sunshine, has like zero consistency in terms of clothing. Characters randomly change outfits mid scene.

Cute girls doing Cute things?
To an extent, that was what i expected of this show at a glance, but i was pleasantly surprised to find a notable depth; a captivating depiction of "idol" life.

I was drawn in by the music; which combined with the immaculate artwork gives Love Live some of the best anime audiovisuals ever. As for the way everything pans out, the show is generally quite upbeat, though very capable of heartwarming and emotional moments too.

This inspirational (in the classic anime way) journey of a few ordinary high school girls attempting to reach the top ranking of idol bands is a motivational ... and uplifting one; and it combines casual SoL elements with a very set-in-stone goal that gives the show its purpose, and the viewers, their reason to keep watching.

In many ways, this is a delicate anime: as one will find from the malleable emotions of the characters, and the well studied approach from U's perspective. This allows the show to be taken more seriously, and break the mold of stereotypical idol series'. Not to imply of course that Love Live defies convention - as it doesn't, though this isn't a restraint.

Moving over to the show's ability to move its audience... Love Live invests a significant portion of episode time into enhancing its overall depth, attachment values to the cast, and their friendly chemistry. This is a valiant move for a short series, but It makes the world of difference to the show's personal and sentimental values: enough to render the anime vivid, yet not over baked, cheap, or detracting from its musical infrastructure.

When it comes to 12 and 13 episode anime series', there are those that focus on story, and those that focus on characters; and though i'm certain that Love Live is character based, the story (although unoriginal) does deliver. Its goal oriented simplicity and method does render it very direct, and perhaps leads people to underestimate; though Sunrise had its way and managed to bring about some more gripping moments that really conveyed the seemingly effortless attachment values of Love Live.

Love live is inescapably a cliche, and you know what this implies, but due to its subtly powerful presentation methods, charming and heartwarming atmosphere, it breaks away nicely, and so its a show i wouldn't be embarrassed to share...

But be prepared to share twice, as it's perhaps the most obvious "hinter" ever when it comes to announcing its sequel - which, though i won't explain now, is likely to be a must watch for viewers of this series. Why? Well, i just finished this, and i feel like things are just getting started; so a follow up review to its sequel when i get around to it.

Would i recommend Love Live?
Well, definitely: now usually i would say WHO i think would enjoy most, but i think that this time around, EVERYONE should give this one a try if they were considering it - as it's a somehow refreshing take on a rehashed premise; and for action junkies, it's an appropriate introduction to the world of casual representation.

Memes. You love them or you hate them. You live by them and die with them, or just simply don't care. So you can say... you either Love (and) Live or you don't.
Thank you everyone, you can leave the death threats in my comment section.

I put a surprisingly large amount of time into thinking about why do I like Love Live's first season. A lot of thoughts ran through my mind, but overtime all the overthinking bullshit, I realized it's as simple as "I had fun".
Not everyone's going to agree with me, but I think watching happy people be happy and achieve their goals is ... rewarding. Honoka wanting to save her school, finding people to do that with and all of them becoming more open with themselves and other people evokes exactly that.

Love Live is very much capable of creating happy characters and scenarios. There's the dumb and passionate people like Honoka, Rin and Nico, the collected but silly ones like Eri, Umi, Maki and Nozomi, and the shy but cheerful ones like Hanayo and Kotori, and they all find themselves digging into the stereotypes of a happy school life and being an idol, providing for a bunch of rather calming and relaxing episodes. There's a distinct progression to it all too, with more members and the growing happy, somewhat loud atmosphere of a group of friends overtaking the show more and more. It was happy at the start, but it's the middle where all of the characters get to really showcase themselves in casual situations and embrace that happiness to its fullest.

Aside from that, I also think Love Live's first season has strong moments of characterization for most of the girls, giving them enough personality to be worth following. There's Honoka with her strong resolve that captured me during the first concert of the group at which any normal person would probably give up. There's Eri looking down on idols as a whole due to their lack of actual skill, but after some time understanding that the most important part of being one is the atmosphere and the fun that comes with it. There's Nico and Hanayo with their life-long dreams of becoming idols, with their own reasons as to why those dreams couldn't become reality sooner. Maki with her enclosed style of life opening up due to the passion for music and friendship she develops throughout this season.

Unfortunately there's also Umi, Rin, Nozomi and Kotori. In comparison to the others, they feel empty, and that's really meaningful when you understand that the others aren't really "full" either. Umi suffers from being sidelined by Honoka, who's always with her, despite having a rather strong presence in the show it's always easy to forget about her. The opposite goes for Rin, who's basically nonexistent. Like, Rin does not exist. And yes, it is annoying to see her still be around despite being nothing. She has one scene to herself, but then she disappears, doesn't contribute to anything meaningful, any jokes, any cute scenes, anything whatsoever. Nozomi on the other hand, has too many scenes. Too many boob grabbing scenes to be exact. I think the idea of her as a hidden mentor, giving backup when needed, was good. That surely helped with turning Maki and Eri into somewhat realized characters. But on the other hand, we have every scene where she tries to be herself. Those scenes consist of:
A. Grabbing boobs
B. Threatening to grab boobs
That would be about it.

And finally, there's Kotori.
Kotori, whose arc was supposed to be the closing one. And oh boy it sure closed with a bang. A bang that would kill the show for a lot of people, that's for sure.

Kotori's arc is bad. It is REALLY bad. Admittedly, it's not only her arc, and that's what makes it even worse.
Even before her confession about leaving, we get Honoka pushing herself too hard and getting sick, leading to a gloomy atmosphere in the group. Making Kotori confess her decision in that situation sidetracks both of those seemingly important issues, creates now ones, and making a one huge mess in general. Visibly forced one at that. I mean, this show was so happy before all this, it's like they force all of the drama they had left in their arsenal. Outside of creating a few cool connections to the second season and the movie, which could've been mentioned in a normal, less dramatic ways too, it has very little purpose. At best, it'll make you sad for the characters that you like, but at worst it'll make you hate numerous characters or the show in general. I'd say that's a pretty poor choice to make there to say the least.

And with that being said, I think it's safe to assume that Love Live: The School Idol Project isn't a good show.
But do I care?
As if.
Love Live was very enjoyable for 10 episodes or so out of 13. You think I'm going to give it a low score because of two or three episodes?
I've always felt weird when people tell me "I liked the show, but the ending is why I have it low". Sure, if it's the artistic quality we're talking about, then by all means, think about it in that context. But this? This is Love Live. It is a meme, it is relaxing fun with cute girls, where would I try to get this value out of? I watch a 13 episodes fun, cute girls show, which was always just that, and then I get both the fun and the cute girls that I think are fun to follow in good doses and so I like it.

On top of that, it is crafted pretty well. The designs for the girls are cute enough, varying in figure, faces, movement, making for fun interactions on the screen. The show looks very pleasant, with tons of bright colors and the nicely fitting uniforms to complement that. The colors just bounced off of each other so nicely that I honestly couldn't stop looking at it.

Then there's the CGI during performances. In all honesty, I'm very glad that the studio decided to do it the way it did. It allowed for much more freedom in the choreography of the performances, and it really shows, there's a lot of movement and the performances look realistic and coordinated. I hear the issue that the jumps between 2D and 3D faces can be jarring, but I never went through that problem, it's pretty clear and obvious that this is how it's going to be, so I took it in pretty fast.

And lastly, the music. The OST is absolutely forgettable background music contributing very little to what's going on. The actual idol songs on the other hand, should be satisfying for anyone new to idols. It's basic stuff, music that you can jump to and wave at a concert. I don't think there were any standouts in particular, but each performance, together with the choreography, made for an entertaining moment in the show, and the songs fit well, especially given their context each time. It gave them that little extra weight.

And with all that, I feel safe in stating that Love Live does its job pretty well, setting up a decent foundation for the second season. It's far from being anything more than satisfying. The ending is just an ending, undermines an entire character for the sake of a finish and can definitely throw people off, giving them low expectations and even making them give up on the series in general, but if that's the case, then I just want to point towards the parts that I believe can be genuinely fun - the first 10 episodes. That's some well crafted cute girls stuff, and if that's what you're looking, then it's waiting for you. And then there's the second season, but that's a different story.

As always, this is purely my opinion. I recommend you to develop your own.

[STORY]

The story for love live is relatively simple which shouldnt be a surprise since its just a moe anime with the intention of using waifu fan service to get its main success.

It goes like this,
our main 3 characters (at the beginning) Honoka,Umi and Kotori find out that their school will be closed down in a year due to not having proper funding or new applicants to justify staying open.

So Honoka comes up with the brilliant plan to become highschool idols to attract new prospective students.

This is despite the fact that none of them have any musical or performance experience at all.
...
and thats the storyline for the first season, along the way the recruit other girls for their idol group but thats pretty much it.

one thing i will give this series is that unlike other moe anime this series does actually stick to the main storyline pretty well and doesnt drift too much in the name of fanservice and if it does drift it does return to the story pretty quickly.



[ART]


the quality of the art is pretty good i will admit.
Its done well enough to be above average but not enough to really stand out all that well.

The character designs arnt anything special but are unique enough to where each character looks different.


[SOUND]


ok so the sound is where this show excells because this is a music anime after all and unlike K-on this music anime actually has music in practice and they actually give performances.

But i will say while the music and choreography is good i dont like the psudo cgi style they are done in.
It just doesnt fit but thats my opinion.

The music is idol music so if you dont like upbeat catchy jpop music you probally wont like it but it does the music very well.

[CHARACTER]

ok so there are alot of characters in this show so im gonna limit to the main characters.


Kousaka Honoka: the leader of Muse and main character.......im just gonna be blunt she is a fucking dumbass and its surprising she hasnt accidently killed herself yet.

Minami Kotori: they overly cute character she is cute and innocent......and might have a lama fetish....


Sonoda Umi: dependable but very shy which makes me wonder why she is even in a idol group to begin with........she also has a few yandere esque moments


Koizumi Hanayo : garbage, trash and just unentertaining as a character at all.

Hoshizora Rin: not quite garbage, not quite a dumbass she is just not quite there.
She doesnt have any unique traits apart from being into sports


Nishikino Maki: a tsundere and the main songwriter for muse and the fan favorite it seems.
Arguably one of the most important characters in the show.


Yazawa Nico: Nico is probally the only person in this entire group who actually wants to be a idol.
She has a passion for being a idol where as everyone else doesnt seem to care as much as she does.
Also she is very cocky and sneaky which makes her best girl by default.

Ayase Eli: her being in muse makes no sense at all.
She spent half the season trying to sabotage the entire group so what do they do?
They invite her to join them......cuz that makes sense.


Toujou Nozomi: .....nozomi....ok im convinced this girl is a pedophile pretending to be a student because she is so knowledgable, alot more than a student should be and she molests everyone she can every chance she gets.




[ENJOYMENT]

despite the fact i tend to hate moe shows i honestly enjoyed this show just from the characters alone and to see what stupid decision honoka would make in the next episode.

i wouldnt say its amazing but it wasnt complete shit either.

Bear with me - this is my first time reviewing an anime. I tend to show an overall rating too high even if I couldn't even finish the anime - I rated Shakugan no Shana III as a 4 if I remember correctly.
But anyway, on to the real topic. Love Live - School idol project. As the name suggests, it is a project done by school idols.

Story - 7
To be honest, I didn't see much wrong with the story. A school is going to close down, so three girls decide to get the school publicity in order to prevent this. So they decide to form ... an idol group. Of course, I'm obviously missing out some things in that short synopsis of the first few episodes.
Then more girls start joining. And this was, in my opinion, this anime's downfall. I'll explain why in the character section though.

Sound - 9
I'm being really biased towards the idol anime genre now. The music was pretty good! Start:Dash was a good song, and the rest of them were also good.

But nothing's perfect.

Art - 6
The design of some characters just didn't seem original. Umi almost looked like Mio from K- On. However, the dancing went with the music. And I think that counts as art.
And before I forget - the use of the 3D effects gave an unsuspecting kick to the anime.

Character - 3 (WARNING - prepare for rant)
This is the major downfall. Seriously.
Characters with more screentime, ideally, should have a well developed backstory. Obviously, because they are main characters. However, if someone joins the main character crew in the middle, they should at least actually be GIVEN a backstory. Rin, for instance. Not one drop of backstory throughout the entire anime.
Obviously it was a short anime, but still - if there's no time to add a backstory to a character, why add in the character at all?

Enjoyment - 5
While the music was enjoyable, the actual anime wasn't as good. I enjoy knowing backstories though, so the overwhelming lack of them didn't help.

Overall - 6
Obviously this will appeal to some more than others. But for me, character development is vital for a good anime.
And in 13 episodes, 9 characters are not going to be developed. But there is going to be s second season. The question is: will the rest of the characters be developed?

And I shall end this with a recommendation.
If you liked Love Live: School Idol Project, trust me. You. Will. ADORE. The iDOLM@STER.

I've never been a fan of "cute girls doing cute things" animes. This is the first idol anime I watched so it's just okay but it's definitely not for me. I mostly watched it because my friends loved it anyways. What annoys me is this stupid moment when one of the girls is like "Oh no, the skirt on this costume is just too short", tf you're talking about, the skirt of your uniform is the same length...

It's just not for me, I understand why people like this but to think some people are obsessed over it is just weird to me.

"The only I thing I want to drop like it's hot is this anime off my watchlist" -Snoop Dogg when asked about Love Live! at MangaCon3030.

Love Live! An anime I've avoided watching for a long time as I'm not big into musical shows, however after seeing it plastered everywhere and recieve very positive reviews, I decided I'd give it a go. Love Live is that guy who gets bullied by everyone in the class including you. You don't mean to bully them, but their is just something about them that makes you. They're weird. Is it their speech, the way they dress, or how they ... go on about odd things? You don't quite know but you sure don't like them. Let's dissect why you don't like them together.

Story: 3
Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh with the score here, as plenty of anime have sub standard plots that are driven through by comedic elements and flashy gimmicks and I wouldn't rate them badly. However, I like my anime to have some kind of worthwhile story to it, something that immerses and captivates me at some level. In my opinion, Love Live! lacks that ability. The school Honoka and her friends Nozomi and Kotori attend is on the brink of closure due to nobody wanting to attend. To remedy this, they decide to form a school idol club in the hopes of attracting more people. That's it. That's the entire season. The full 13 episodes feels like it covers as much as even the most slow paced anime cover in about 5, with setting up the idol club and recruiting more members. Basically nothing happens. The formula that has been given for this season is girls want to perform a song. They need stuff like lyrics and dance moves for the song. Spend an episode setting it up and delivering it. Spend the next episode adding a new character to the cast, rinse repeat. I already find the motivations of the characters stupid. I enjoyed my time at secondary school, I really did, and if it closed down even now I'd be upset. But there is no way on gods green earth that I, or anybody I know for that matter, would do anything tangible to stop the closure, and yet this school has about 6 people who are going to do everything they can to stop it. I also know that this is a cultural difference and maybe they have them over there, but school idols sound like such a farfetched and silly thing, and even if they are a big thing in Japan, why would any parent let a kid join a school soley based on the fact that between three and six girls who will be gone within two years do singing and dancing at a good level (in an extra curricular club that no staff have invested any time or money in). By that logic I should go find the tree Issac Newton sat under and get it to teach me, because a famous man learnt there. This is again, the whole show. There's nothing new and the constant smiley never give up sunshine and love attitude gets on your nerves after a certain amount of time. There are a lot of points where you think something will happen, either an argument or some big thing stemming from an issue and instead they just sweep it under the rug and decide to be cheerful.

Art: 6
I wanted to like the art. I really did. And the art itself isn't the problem to be fair. On the whole Love Live! emmits a vibrant cheery attitude through its art style, with crisp clean and nice looking images. But. And it's a big but. CGI. C-god damn GI. This is far and away the worst part of Love Live! This show contains a lot of singing and dancing, usually one (but sometimes more) songs per episode, and in every song they will just jump cut between hand drawn and CGI at random points. I'm not a fan of CGI in general, but if you're going to use it for the songs at least stick to it. Instead you just get this mishmash of awfulness where they go from flat to 3d and back again constantly, completely ruining and enjoyment you may have had watching the song.

Music: 7
Love Live! Has good music. It's no Shigatsu but the music is catchy and upbeat. I'm not a big fan of Idol type music but I can still listen through this without wanting to kill myself so I consider that well done on Love Live!'s part. Also they gave us Snow Halation (2nd season) which is a meme now. Check out SiIva gunner for some dank memeage (Definitely the best thing about this show).

Character: 4
I don't understand why people seem to love these characters. They're all their own brand of bland and boring. "But Gandalf!" I hear you cry "They're all so different and Kawaii, how could you say such mean things?" Firstly, any of you who was fine with the use of Kawaii please leave. Secondly, these hyper caricatures of super sweetness aren't interesting or fleshed out in any way. Just making them different is not enough to give them a personality. We firstly start with Honoko, the pig headed, dumb one who just charges ahead and does what she wants. She is the only thing that drives this story, and the plot will basically form around her saying "We need to do X", somebody else saying no, and her going ahead and doing it any way. Her stupidity is only matched by her sickeningly sweet kindness, which isn't endearing but becomes obnoxious. Kotori is next, take the sweetness again, add a really high pitched and annoying voice, and stick her in a secret maid costume and hey you have a Kotori. She is basically worse Honoka, and ends up doing the same sort of shit she does, but just doesn't get as much screen time because she isn't the mainest of main characters. Then we have Umi. If Honoka is the main driving force of the plot Umi is the one that is there purely so the viewer doesn't ask "How did they get so good without doing anything.", Umi's only job is to tell the others to train. That's it. She'll tell them they need to run more, or do more exrecise, or eat less, or get ready for singing. Basically if X needs to be done and it doesn't fit in with Honoka's personality to do it, it's Umi's turn to day something. Maki is basically again discount Umi, someone who is constantly annoyed and constantly telling the others to do stuff, but again doesn't get as much screen time. Then we have Nico. Arguably the only one with any personality to speak of but still just as annoying as the rest. She wants to be an idol but has a terrible personality. She is one of those characters that everyone makes fun of/ignores (and usually calls gross but the show is too everybody friendly to call anybody gross), even when they do something good or clever, which is a trope I've never enjoyed. Nico has a dark side however. Her idol persona is so sickly sweet you will definitely get diabetes from watching it. The first time watching the contrast between her and her persona is kind of funny and I'll admit gave me a chuckle, but it soon wears off when it's used again and again. Then we have Nozomi. She's the standard breast groping character. That's her condensed down. She does divination and gropes other peoples' breasts. Eri is the final girl and is possibly one of the worst of them. She acts like a stuck up knob for the first 8 or so episodes, attacking the rest of them with everything she has, whilst simultaneously trying to save the school by asking the chairman to allow them to "Take action", whatever that means. I'm assuming she had some great idea up her sleeve to save the school that the chairman just wouldn't allow... Oh wait. Then it turns out she hates the idea of the idol club and seems to harbour a resentment for dancing because she was a professional ballet dancer when she was younger. It then cuts to a clip of her losing a competition at a very young age. Now most shows would take this in the direction of her parents were harsh/told her winning is everything, and made her dance/punished her for now winning. In this one the kindly mother tells her it was ok to lose and that she did her best. Cut back to Eri scowling. How this is supposed to signify her hatred for them (hatred is a very strong word as she joins their group almost immediately after) I don't know. It's not even implied that she doesn't have time to dance anymore because of her family/busy life so I really don't get what they were pushing for here.
Just to help everyone out, Id like to clarify I don't hate nice things, or when things go well, and that nice happy characters can be good characters. It's just that this niceness is these characters personalities. They do nothing but go around basically going "I better be nice today guys. Hoo here's me being nice again. Isn't it swell?" They all seem to have one personality trait or feature and just amplify it 10fold. That isn't how you make a good character.

Enjoyment: 5
The show is meh at best. It's a cutesy feel goody thing that just tries to pump you full of "If we do things hard enough it'll work", and "Friendship is the way to go!". If you're a bit more of a normal person that won't be your thing, but if it is, this show is a 10/10 for you.

Overall: 5
It's alright. It'll get you through a rainy afternoon or a long car journey if you have nothing else available to you, but it certainly isn't something you should be prioritising over other anime. Should you watch Love Live!?
Not unless you love diabetes.

School idol project does as much good as it does wrong. Take that as you will. For the first show of the general love live series, it's pretty well done. Most of the characters are pretty enjoyable and it has a fairly charming pace. The story really isn't anything to write home about, but it's more about the characters. It's cheesy as you'd be expecting for the genre, but it isn't intolerable. It gets better on as the show goes, but it can be a little rough to sit through at times. These times are during the very early CGI which is incredibly jarring to ... watch. With the tendency to just spring songs and dance numbers out of the blue, the very subpar cgi can make it enough to turn some folks off, which is entirely fair. If you're reading this without having seen love live, go watch episode 1 and then watch the animated video for ku ru ku ru cruller.

Overall, it isn't terrible. I don't know if I'd say anything more than good. It's the weakest show by virtue of being the first and didn't have the refinements or lessons. For that, I really respect just how much they did well on a first try. If you can't sit through this, try Sunshine. It's more or less a retelling of this show with mentions to how it inspired Aqours directly within itself. It's animation is much better, and the characters I personally believe are more charming. However, there's no replacing µ's.

I am speaking for the entirety of the School Idol Project

I was honestly expecting an intense competition between school idols before I watch the show. It did have one but its safe to say that it wasn't the main point of the show. The music wasn't bad in fact I really love some of them especially "A song for you! you? you!!" and "Snow Halation". But the way it was presented it almost feel like they focused more in the dance which makes sense since they're idols, pretty standard for an idol.

Their performance is good its replicatable in real life but it always felt lacking ... on something imo. Some of their performance isn't as lively as how I would expect an idol to be. Their performance isn't boring or bad in some way its just that the way it is animated didn't give emphasis to their performance. The way their performance is presented focused on the choreography of the dance itself, The performance are realistic its not overexaggerating. its almost as if it was performed by actual people. which could be a good thing for some people. But I'm more on the flashy and iconic type that is almost a music video type of animation. So I'd say it would be better if there are more flashing lights, visual effects, and livelier performance. which what the Love Live Nijigisaki Gakuen was able to pull off

It does have CGI but it isn't as horrendous as the ones typically seen in standard shonen. I'd describe the CGI as similar to a video game type.

Overall its a chill SoL with lovable characters. The characters in this anime has to be one of its strong points. Each of them has their own personality and tropes and overtime they feel like they're needed for the show. Muse just won't be the same even just one of them is gone. oh yea and Kotori Minami is hot

This review treats season 1, season 2, the OVA, and the movie as one show.

What I think your expectations should be:
Laughter - No, this is not a comedy.

Ecchi Arousal - No, not once did I ever feel aroused during this show.

Unstoppable Push from Compelling Plot - I didn't really feel much of a push from the plot, and I had to exert some willpower sometimes to keep watching.

Unstoppable Push to Keep Watching - I didn't really feel much of a push from the plot, and I had to exert some willpower sometimes to keep watching.
...
Wholesomeness - I'd say it's very wholesome. Maybe describing it as having a lot of "heart" is more accurate.

Action Dopamine - No, there weren't any physical fights.

Tears of Sorrow - Yes. I think many episodes made me cry out of sorrow, especially on the later episodes.

Tears of Joy - No, I don't think I ever experienced that.

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Why did I give it a 9?
For context, I love positive emotions and hate experiencing negative emotions. I gave this show a 9 because I cried out of sorrow a lot from this show. But I genuinely love the show. The main cast will always have a special place in my heart.

Why did I give it a "Mixed Feelings"?
Because some review readers will like this and some won't.

Who should watch this show?
I think that if you want to cry out of sorrow a lot, this is the show for you.
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****WHAT FEELING DO I THINK YOU WILL EXPERIENCE FROM THE ENDING (Scroll Down if you want to know)****




















































Bittersweet. Very very bitter. My brain thinks it should have some sweetness to it, but my heart is only filled with bitterness.