Many teenagers dream of their high school life as being the best years of their life. There they meet friends who's friendships they keep dear, discover what they honestly want to do with their lives, and to chase their dreams.
But what if all of this was taken away from you?
This is exactly what happens to our main protagonist Kousaka Honoka as she fights to keep her high school dream alive.
This is my review of the anime hit series: Love Live! School Idol Project
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[Story] - 7/10
This story starts off with the decision that Otonokizaka High School will be closed due to lack of new student applications. Honoka, upon hearing this gets depressed as she wont be able to fully live her high school dream to its full potential as there will be never be any new students/friends to enter the school again. Honoka does not want this to happen and decides that she; with the help of her 2 friends Umi and Kotori will be the ones that save the school from closing. To fulfill this task, she must find a way to attract the attention and influence teens to join her school. How will she do that? Well, what attracts students more then new school pop idols?! Thus, the school idol group 'Muse' was born.
To be honest, I felt hesitant when I first approached this anime. I was never really interested in idol genre because generally the music played in them I felt were all generic and too cliche. If I were not to stumble over a Reddit post showing how 'Long Live! School Idol Project' sold a tremendous amount of copies its first week, I might have never came across this anime.. but i'm really glad I did.
Although this genre generally has a bad name in terms of plot, this anime executes it quite nicely. This story was interesting because it felt relatable as it touches on many themes that we face in our everyday life such as hard work, perseverance, and the dreams we hold dear. As a student that is still in high school currently, I feel that I have dealt with these themes myself at least once in my high school life, which makes the story even more reassuring as I can relate to it and its characters as a student/viewer. Even though these themes aren't elaborated as much as I wish they did, it was still great to see that this anime contained an interesting plot, and how we can learn from this story as opposed to the usual cute girls doing cute things because well... you know... they're cute. Not that i'm opposed to that, as sometimes those can be a good watch when your in the mood. (Please don't kill me moe army.)
[Art] - 8/10
The overall art style of this anime is above average. For a show created in 2013, I've seen some of our current year anime's with lower quality art then this.That is definitely reassuring as there's no drop in quality and is quite balanced in terms of quality distribution throughout the anime. During the live shows, the dance scenes are super cute, and ultimately provide for a nice viewing experience that never ceased to stop me from watching these scenes with a slight smile. It also impressed me on how they change the art style when the live shows happen. They turn all of the idols into 3 dimensional characters instead of the usual 2D throughout the anime. I felt that this was a very cool change and implemented a stronger impact during the live scenes as it always got me excited whenever they decided to perform.
[Sound] - 9/10
For an anime that prides itself on being in the idle genre, I expected there to be tons of new and exciting songs that would keep me interested throughout the story. I wasn't disappointed. The music they sang were lively and spirited. It really got me pumped up when they started singing, and the live performances never ceased to stop me from humming along with the tune. The idol's voices were beautiful and strong as well, that managed to leave an impact on me with the resonant songs they sang. I felt the songs that they sang were always full of fun, and you could tell that they were originally made too as it didn't seem too professional but also not too amateurish as well. An example of this would be this series opening "Bokura wa Ima no Naka de" by non other then 'Muse'. I really enjoyed the impact of the opening of this song. The tune is extremely catchy and I often found myself humming along with the opening as each episode began. Overall I was quite impressed with the music in this anime, as it was something that made this anime stand out and shine. (Something people can't really say about all Idle anime today, as some of them don't really focus on the music part as much anymore)
[Character] - 8/10
All the Idol's found within this anime are all lovable in their own way. They each portray a different quality that makes them somewhat unique. Even though they might be put into a generic archetype, that doesn't mean that it is all there is to them. The thing i'm impressed with, is the amount of character development that our Idols go through. During the beginning of the story, we can definitely tell that these 3 girls did not really look like they were idol material and it certainly didn't feel like they wanted to be one. With hard work and perseverance, they were able to take on this incredible difficult task by setting aside their differences on the topic at hand. The dramatic moments in the story also have a greater impact because we can relate to these characters and situations as we've most likely gone through the same hardships numerous times before. High school life. I feel that many of us have felt the emotions that have come with it far too many times. This helps us feel stronger emotions toward these characters.
The only thing I felt was problematic, was how the situation played out too perfectly. It seemed that the idea of becoming idols was just a random idea thrown out of the blue from Honoka. Yet, these 3 students who've never even sang on stage, trained professionally as a singer/dancer, and only practiced with no help whatsoever can do it perfectly just like that? Is that all there is to an idol? Probably not. It could be that they just don't want us to think about it too much as it is probably not that big of a deal, but it just kind of left me wondering.
[Enjoyment/Overall] 8/10
Overall, I enjoyed watching this anime alot. Sure, I did feel kind of embarrassed as this was the first idle anime that I've ever watched, but i'm really glad I did. Now, I'll be less hesitant to try anime like these because some of them are definitely worth watching like this. For all of the people that enjoy idol anime, I would definitely recommend this and to the people who are curious/worried about this anime because of its genre, i'd say give it a shot. I know you can't hate something that you haven't watched, but that goes the same way with anime that you like.