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The Love Live franchise and the series that it produces has always been a coin flip to whether it's going to end up being mediocre or great. To name names, Sunshine falling short of its predecessor and the School Idol Project's lackluster finale. If you were to ask me what side of the coin did Love Live Superstar land on, I would confidently be able to tell you that it landed on the right side.

Superstar is a great entry show to the Love Live franchise. It barely has any connections to the previous installments, making it an easy and clean entry to just turn on ... and watch. It was a bit of a surprise to me that Superstar took up the: 'school is closing down' cliche so late into the season. What surprised me even more, while continuously watching it week by week, was that it didn't shove this cliche down your throat 24/7. In comparison to School Idol Project and Sunshine, Superstar takes this cliche at a different approach. The cliche still serves its purpose of giving the girls more motivation. But instead of constantly hitting us with this theme like in School Idol Project and Sunshine, Superstar makes the girl's desires, to help one another overcome their own problems, as the make focus and theme of the series. This emphasis on the girls gives them more room for growth as characters, whilst using the 'school is closing down theme' as, just as another motivation when needed. You may argue that's this cliche is the appeal of School Idol Project and Sunshine, but I believe this approach for Superstar was the right choice to make.

What School Idol Project and Sunshine lacked in my opinion was the growth for all their characters. Each character likely only got one episode per season focused on solely them. Yes, these episodes with my favorites characters were some of my favorites to watch, but they lacked MAJOR growth as a whole. They likely only solved one problem they were having at that moment. What Superstar did in comparison was that they cut down the cast to 5 members instead of the regular 9, which gave more room for development and growth as individuals and group chemistry as a whole. They kept struggles each character had within them (e.g. Kanon's stage fright, Sumire's inferiority complex, etc). They didn't shallowly cast it aside during the episode it was brought up, rather it waited until the group as a whole was able to help solve it together, making the series flow more naturally and made it feel more realistic.

Although one of the negatives I found in Superstar was the weak rival group that was hardly used in the story. What I think School Idol Project and Sunshine did better in comparison to Superstar was that they made full use of their rival groups as another major motivation. Sunny Passion felt shallow, as they were hardly given screen time and felt forcefully used in the story. They aren't another main driving force Liella uses as motivation, unlike each of the character's personal struggles or the school closing down. Sunny Passion is sort of just sitting on the bench waiting to played, but ultimately stays and keeps it warm.

Ever since Sunshine, the quality of animation, art and also character designs of Love Live has just gone up and up since then. They still have their trademark exaggerated faces which everyone loves and as an added bonus, derpy faces are used when the characters faces are out of zoom, which I personally loved to death. Superstar also has some really amazing background art to go in tandem with the amazing CGI. Heck, sometimes I couldn't even tell that some of the performances were in CG. Everything about the art just felt really clean, almost even perfect.

As expected of Love Live, all of the songs are such a bop. The Ending, 'Mirai wa Kaze no You ni' is probably one of favorite endings in Love Live of all time. The song itself is amazing, but the visuals is what makes this ending so great. No there aren't any hidden themes found within the Ed, it's just the group of Liella having fun and showing some of their daily activities. As a bonus, each of the members of Liella join Kanon one by one as they do the trademark waving, one of my favorite scenes in the Ed. But this simplicity is what makes it so great, fitting to Love Live's main slice of life genre. As also expected of Love Live, all of the voice actors are amazing. They perfectly fitting to the corresponding character they play as and have distinct and beautiful voices.

What Love Live always excels at is making amazing and likable characters. Even if you don't like them at first, you somehow always end up loving them in the end. Superstar's characters, don't feel like a re-skin of any of the characters from the previous Love Live, which were a major problem for some people when watching Sunshine. Each of the girls help each other grow as characters. Their struggles don't feel shallow, and as a viewer, it's really satisfying to watch them overcome them because of that fact. The smaller cast and group also helps flesh out each of the characters more, even with the smaller episode count. It really lets the viewer to get to know the girls more and lets them grow onto the girls more and more.

Superstar is overall an amazing successor to the Love Live franchise with it's; iconic cast of characters, corresponding with equally amazing voice actors, it's trade mark character designs, and it's amazing songs which makes this series/franchise so appealing in the first place.

It's an amazing installment to the Love Live franchise and didn't disappoint in any aspects what so ever. If anything, it well exceeded expectations.

A failed attempt at an amazing concept.

Initially when looking at the shows I was potentially going to watch this Spring 2021 season, this show’s title caught me by the corner of my eye. ‘Osananajimi ga Zettai ni Makenai Love Comedy’ or otherwise known as, ‘Osakmake: The Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won’t Lose’. Sounds amusingly interesting, right?

I’m sure everyone who has watched a handful amount of harem type shows has felt the pain of the childhood friend getting surprised sucker punched at the end of the series by another heroine. Osamake’s concept was supposed to be different though: “A romcom where the childhood friend won’t ... lose!”, is what author, Shuichi Nimaru, thought of when creating this genius idea. Or so we thought.

Shortly into the series, we learn that all of the heroines are the main protagonist’s childhood friends. Touché. Touché.

Now with this in mind, the whole concept of a singular childhood friend winning amongst all the other heroines is completely blown out the window. Some would argue that by knowing who the end winner of the series is, it would ultimately be a boring watch. I would argue otherwise. The concept of not knowing who is going to win at the end of the series can be exciting, yes. Cheering on your best girl/guy with other fans of the series can be massively entertaining, yes. The disappointment of that heroine losing or the excitement of seeing them win, is honestly one of the few moments I really appreciate being in this community. But of course, this is only achieved when done correctly.

Here is the problem with many of these harem series: They try to take this approach, but ultimately end up failing by unnecessarily dragging the series out way too long or in some cases not even giving us a winner at the end. By knowing we have an end winner, we as watchers or readers of the series have closure that a heroine will even be chosen at the end. This concept alone would make a series stand out way more from its competitors. But because of this decision, it makes Osamake just another generic romcom thrown down the rabbit hole of many.

What happened to getting revenge? This whole revenge aspect was actually something I found to be a pretty interesting concept when initially reading the synopsis. It would’ve been fun and interesting to see a show revolve around the childhood friend and the main protagonist trying to get revenge on the person who rejected him. And by doing so, the childhood friend and the main protagonist slowly grow closer together. Or so I thought this was going to be the case when reading the synopsis.

The whole ‘revenge’ theme was completely chucked off of the roof as soon as it was introduced. With the recent trend of a lot of new series coming out now, many are starting to overuse this whole ‘revenge’ theme now— most notably, the recent Redo of a Healer. Osamake’s attempt at this shallow theme of revenge was poorly executed and was hardly brushed upon at all. I thought this theme was supposed and going to be built upon more. Heck, even the name of the of the Opening Theme is, “Chance! & Revenge!”. Instead, it was used as a cheap plot device to initially bait the viewer into checking out the series and keep the story going— great.

Speaking of things that the show introduced, but never mentioned or touched on ever again. Osamake consistently did this, including their main selling point of the love revenge plot. At times they would bring in a major focal point as a cliff hanger, but never mention this point again (i.e. the cooking contest between Maria and Shiro). You may argue that, these scenes just may have happened in the sidelines, but if your going to make something a major point in the episode, heck even the entire anime, wouldn't you think they would at least give us 5 seconds at the beginning of the next episode to show us that the scene did happen?

Initially, when looking at the art style and the character designs from the Light Novel, they were actually pretty good in my opinion. On the contrary though, the animation was just really stiff and awkward. A lot of the stills and backgrounds used throughout the 12 episode runtime, was real hard to look at in combination with the very colorful palate used. Many, if not all, of the characters movements throughout the show looked like a PowerPoint presentation, from little things like running towards or grabbing 'x' item, to the dance performances they would give.

I can barely even recall any of the soundtrack used throughout the series, but the Opening Theme, Ending Theme and the insert song used in episode 9 (Paradise SOS) were some pretty catchy songs. I even caught myself re-listening to them a couple times when going out for a morning jog. The voice actors are great, and I'm sure everyone knows and agrees on that at this point. Inori Minase fits perfectly towards Kuro with her gentle and soft spoken voice, yet if needed, can go in the complete opposite direction for a cuter and energetic tone. Ayaneru is known for being able to voice a lot of energetic, soft spoken, cute or cold and sarcastic characters; so Shiro definitely fits her. Ever since Matsuoka Yoshitsugu’s role as Kirito, he has filled a lot of harem protagonist roles. Maru, if not obvious, definitely fits that description. I don’t want to fit every single voice actor, but I think you get the gist at this point.

Our main protagonist is Maru Sueharu. He is very indecisive most of the time, yet very impulsive when it comes to his emotions. He is also a bit perverted, but who would blame him when he has such pretty girls all over him? He is your average harem protagonist, that the average person would find his actions and mannerisms to be pretty annoying.

All of the other characters though are as generic and unlikeable as it can be. Kai Tetsuhiko: The main protagonist’s best friend with a painfully obvious foreshadowed secret. Shirokusa Kachi: typical cold exterior with cute insides type character trope. Kuroha Shida: the wannabe onesan. She doesn't give off that onesan aura at all and in combination with her very aggressive and stubborn personality, she was really hard to listen to at times. Maria Momosaka: The yandere loli, it may surprise you that she was actually one of the better characters too. Rena Asagi: Big boobs #1. Midori Shida: Big boobs #2. Everyone else from this point is barely worth even mentioning and I’m sure you get the gist.

As much as I hate to use the word cringe, I have to admit that most of the dialogue between characters and their actions were indeed, cringe. All of the lines between the characters made it a really hard watch to actually get through the entire show. The dance performances given looked like they were out of a 2000s pop music video, basically all of Maru's actions were the definition of cringe, the commercials they filmed were just plain hard to look at, etc. etc.


Look I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this show to anyone. There are a lot of other copy pasta shows just like this that are done twenty times better. But for anyone who is looking for a trashy harem to indulge themselves in because they have free time, here is the show for you!

Although, Osamake is just your average run-of-the-mill harem/romcom show, with a majorly clickbaity title.