Love Live! Superstar!! 3rd Season

As the Love Live! Competition draws to a close, Kanon Shibuya takes an offer to study abroad and bids farewell to her friends and fellow members of the school idol group Liella!. Although they will live on opposite sides of the world, both Kanon and the group remain motivated to continue their idol activities.

Unbeknownst to Kanon, however, her plans are cut short by Wien Margarete's parents, who request that Kanon remain in Japan for another year so that their daughter can learn from her. While Kanon finds herself in awkward limbo, Wien cannot bring herself to join her once fierce rival Liella! and decides to start a group of her own.

Not wanting Wien's determination to go to waste, Kanon joins the new group, recruiting her former group member's sister Tomari Onitsuka in the process. As the newfound unit strives to wash off Wien's controversial past, the new Liella! is also wrestling with the struggles of losing their irreplaceable center.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shibuya, Kanon Main

Date, Sayuri Japanese

Tang, Keke Main

Liyuu Japanese

Heanna, Sumire Main

Payton, Naomi Japanese

Arashi, Chisato Main

Misaki, Nako Japanese

Hazuki, Ren Main

Aoyama, Nagisa Japanese

Wien, Margarete Main

Yuina Japanese

Wakana, Shiki Main

Ookuma, Wakana Japanese

Sakurakouji, Kinako Main

Suzuhara, Nozomi Japanese

Yoneme, Mei Main

Yabushima, Akane Japanese

Onitsuka, Natsumi Main

Emori, Aya Japanese

Kyougoku, Takahiko Director

Nagasaki, Yukio Sound Director

Liyuu Theme Song Performance

Date, Sayuri Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Dec 23, 2024

lycoping

Recommended

This review will assume you've watched season 1 and 2, and there may be spoilers for those series. But I consider that acceptable, because it's probably not a great idea to jump in on season 3, particularly with *this* anime. Watch those first.

I'll wait.

Gosukomushi... Gosukomushi.. hey, wait. Sumire! Put down that rope! And that palm frond!

Okay, here we go!

Wien Margarete might be the most interesting character in the whole "Love! Live" franchise, and might be one of my favorites in all of anime.

In season 2, Wien (Margarete? I guess there's some discussion/debate/otakufights (which consist of smacking each other with ... waifu catgirl tails) on that, but I maintain Wien is her LAST name) was a secondary character, who ended up being the "Big Bad" towards the end of the season. She ended up losing, and the reason she ended up losing was made very clear. She didn't know how to be an idol. She was a spectacularly competent dancer/singer, but she had absolutely no idea how to connect with her audience. In point of fact, she became an idol just to stick a fork in the eye of all the "real" idols.. and she failed. Hard. We left season 2 when she donned a Yuigaoka uniform and was going to go to school with Shibuya, for reasons we didn't understand at the time.

In season 3, she has been upgraded to a main character, along with Tomari, the other new addition to Liella!. Well... maybe.

I think it's fair to say that this season is, in part, an exploration of the redemption of Wien, who left the previous season absolutely *hated* by pretty much everyone. I refuse to say how that turns out, clearly. But given the way Wien's character was introduced, I think you can probably take an educated guess or two as to how it might turn out, and you have a decent chance of at least coming close to the mark. Let's just say I think she's the most interesting character for a *reason*. But...

This is a very predictable story. The main plot points are mostly telegraphed from miles away - I don't even really know how you'd spoil this anime because there aren't any plot twists worth speaking of. You pretty much know how it's going to turn out from day 1, and, well, this isn't ""Hibike! Euphonium", where you *thought* you did but they pulled one over on you and made you cry in the process. This is "Love! Live". We're not here for a coherent story, or realism, or anything but a barely realistic musical where a bunch of girls have a dream of winning a competition, and nothing is going to stand in their way. Not common sense, not realism, not typical high school girl competence. These girls make professional music, professional costumes, professional stages, professional everything, even though in every other way they're just typical high school girls. But, as with the previous two seasons, don't let that get in the way of enjoying this series. It's a musical, and no one ever watches a musical with the idea that they're going to get a real or realistic *anything*. It's just there for entertainment, and it delivers. Nothing more than that, but if you wanted more than that, maybe watch "Wake up girls!", "ID@LMASTER: Cinderella Girls" or maybe "Girls band cry". Even "Bocchi the Rock" would be better for that. But if you can accept this for what it is, you get to watch eleven girls singing, dancing, and sometimes even being nice to each other.

You get a new idol song, new costumes, and new venue at the end of each episode. All the songs are typical idol. Which is to say, not interesting whatsoever. But if you like idol music, well, there ya go. You get lots. You know, looking back on it, I'm not even sure why I enjoyed it. The music is mid (as with most but not all idol music), the plot is mid, everything's mid. And yet, well, I did. Go fig. Maybe it's just because Love! Love is that kinda franchise - it's turned mid into art.

Gosukomushi, gosukomushi.. *ahem*. Oh, yeah, that costume makes an appearance. Poor Sumire...

Anyway, that's my review. If you liked seasons 1 and 2, you'll like this, because it's more of the same, with an extra dose of Wien. If you didn't like seasons 1 and 2, you'll probably not like this. If you didn't like Wien, well, give it a chance. She's not a bad girl. Just really driven, and a little socially inept.

Song for me! Song for you! Song for all!!!!

Recommend from me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jul 26, 2025

MelodyOfMemory

Mixed Feelings

This feels like a post-script season. It's better than the disastrous 2nd season, and it has some good moments that give meaningful development to some characters, but it otherwise feels episodic and aimless. The callbacks to the first season only reinforce how much the entire Superstar subseries is carried by its first 12 episodes. Without that lingering nostalgia or the Love Live name, there would be little reason to watch this.

Chisato, Keke, and Natsumi benefit the most from this season. Episode 3 serves as a nice climax for Chisato's story. She's always been an understated presence as Kanon's number two, but her assertiveness and independent ... thinking makes her one of the show's best and most memorable characters (with her scenes in the last two episodes of Season 2 being one of its few redeeming moments). Given the chance to lead Liella, she really shines as someone who builds confidence in others by pushing them past their self-imposed limitations, and it's heartwarming to see that she has channeled her childhood trauma in such a positive direction. Keke's character arc finally resolves here, and while it's a predictable conclusion, it fits thematically with what she established about her insecurities in the first season. Natsumi gets a do-over from her Season 2 debut has become a more sympathetic character with her expanded backstory. However, unlike the original Liella members in Season 1, where everyone found an answer to their insecurities, Natsumi's arc feels unfinished, with a conclusion that is incongruent with her anxieties. In fact, the rest of the post-S1 cast (and the long-neglected Ren) also lack complete stories. Say what you want about Sumire's lack of presence in S3, but at least she got a conclusive resolution in S1.

This unfortunately symbolizes S3's writing in general. Despite having the same production team, S2 and S3 have less things to say than S1, often stretching out episodes with filler material and demonstrating a lesser understanding of the characters compared to how nuanced and in-depth they were in S1. One of the worst examples of this is when new character and Natsumi's sister Tomari compares her to Kanon by saying they're not comparable because Kanon is talented. Kanon, a girl who struggled with depression throughout her first season, the ordinary heroine that showed incredible sincerity and willpower to finally break through and hear the sound of the future, the beloved protagonist that many shy people in the audience, including myself, saw ourselves in, had her entire arc reduced to being a mere chosen one on a pedestal. If you believe Tomari, she's no longer supposed to be relatable. It's a jarring thematic contradiction that reveals how much less care was put into the writing, and it does not bode well for Love Live as a whole when also considering the same lack of care led to the demise of its long running mobile rhythm game months before this season aired.

One of the last few episodes reveals another contradiction. There, a character is given the option to do a sad song, but insists she doesn't want to out of consideration for others. Nice and sweet in isolation, except the entire first season was about sadness and using music as an outlet for overcoming sadness. This could have been another interesting conflict between two girls from different backgrounds, another chance to push someone out of their comfort zones and learn new things, but instead, everyone goes with her request without question. It's this overly safe, feel-good resolution that may have been acceptable in a different slice-of-life anime, but is disappointing after Superstar has shown it is capable of much deeper, more insightful storytelling than this.

There are other things that could be said about the bloated now 11 member cast, which still feels like a corporate decision rather than something that genuinely benefits the writing, but the former examples already give an indication of the season's general messiness. It's unlikely to change people's minds on Superstar, whatever their perspective coming in. For those committed to seeing this to the end, it's not the worst way to spend 12 episodes, but it sends the message not to expect anything special from the franchise, and that's the biggest disappointment of all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Mar 8, 2025

Firechick12012

Not Recommended

Oh, Love Live Superstar, how far you've fallen. As someone who's not normally into Love Live, the first two seasons of it at least, I actually enjoyed both Nijigasaki and Superstar. The first season of Superstar was a nice, refreshing, adorable little schoolgirl series, even if it made the mistake of retreading old ground the original series and Sunshine already tackled, and actually managed its cast of characters quite well. The second season was a little weaker and didn't have as much of a handle on its new characters as it would have liked, but I still enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the third and final season ... should have ended this iteration with a bang, but instead ended it with little more than a pathetic whimper. Superstar deserved so much better than this, and the problems season two had are multiplied tenfold here. I don't know what in the world happened, but they really dropped the ball with this final season.

First of all, you know that whole cliffhanger at the end of season 2 that everyone made out to be this super sad, melodramatic thing? Season 3 decided to completely cop out on that, keep Kanon in Yuigaoka for absolutely ridiculous, stupid reasons that just scream contrived plot convenience, and then try to make Margarete into an ally! Like...what? Actually, this whole thing sums up the biggest problem behind Superstar's third season: It's writing. The whole season feels completely and utterly directionless, like it wrote itself into a corner by trying to send Kanon to Vienna, but then went back on that and now they don't know what to do with the series anymore. Their whole solution was to drag out the series by having Kanon, Margarete, and another girl, Natsumi's sister Tomari, form their own idol group to compete against Liella, but why even do that if you're just going to have them rejoin Liella again anyway? The whole idol group vs idol group thing feels less like a compelling plot and more like an excuse to drag the series out for longer than it needs to. Furthermore, the whole setup completely gets in the way of fleshing out the rest of the cast, especially the second years, who get almost nothing to do here. Writers, you could have used this time to flesh out the other characters but instead wasted your time on a cheesy, mealymouthed redemption arc for a pink-haired brat who honestly had no business being in Superstar in the first place.

Speaking of unneeded characters, Tomari. I'm sorry, but I don't know why the creators bothered to even put her here as well. She honestly feels completely superfluous, has no real purpose for being here, and her whole characterization makes absolutely no sense. She doesn't want Natsumi to be hurt, but she decides to hurt her the second she decides she wants to do something meaningful with her life? Consistency should not be this hard, people! Tomari, to me, represents this season's lack of direction, because just like the season itself, it feels like she was just shoehorned into the show because of executive mandate. Then again, I still don't like Natsumi because she's still a brat who got off way too easy for trying to break Liella up and sow conflict between them for clout and views in the previous season, and this season did nothing to change that for me. Not to mention Margarete still being an emo brat whose redemption arc feels in no way earned, sincere, or even natural whatsoever. Everyone deserved so much better. Even the whole plot about Keke having to choose between staying an idol or staying in China feels so half-baked because previous seasons made it into a huge deal, only for everything to be magically resolved by the power of idols, thereby undermining any tension or personal stakes it could have had. Gag me.

The animation and music are fine, not much to say there. I still think season one's songs are better, but the ones here are fairly good by themselves. Actually, going back to the results of last season's cliffhanger: What school would reach out to a random student in Japan and ask her to come to Vienna, only to suddenly back out of it at the last second?! Isn't that, like, super unprofessional? Wouldn't that break a ton of bureaucratic rules or something? God, you know the writing in this season is bullshit when none of its established plotlines make any lick of sense! Seriously, Superstar seemed like it was going to really experiment with the Love Live formula, only for it to just go back to playing it super safe because it's afraid of alienating its audience. I mean, there is going to be a new series called Love Live Bluebird, implied to be going in the direction of Bang Dream: It's MyGO or Ave Mujica, and for all I know, maybe that one will be better. I don't know. I'm just mad that Superstar, a season that started off strong and had a lot of potential to learn from the mistakes of its forebears and do something new, had to end in such a pathetic, unsatisfying manner.

I'm not gonna waste any more time on this. Poor Love Live Superstar. An utterly lackluster, poorly executed season 3 served as its death knell, bogged down by haphazard writing and a lack of care for any of its characters. God, Superstar deserved so much better than this!

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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