The story continues from the prequel with Honoka becoming Student Council President as an honor of saving the school from being shut down. Shortly after, news about a larger scale Love Live competition started to spread where regional groups have to compete in the final rounds. While Honoka did not want to participate at first, she ultimately decides to enter since it was Eli’s, Nozomi’s and Nico’s last chance to participate with the rest of Muse in Love Live before they graduate. With A-Rise being the big rival in their division, the group now has to do their best to become the number one School Idol group in the competition.
Like the last season, the characters and premise are still enjoyable. In the sequel, they finally gave the other four members, Nico, Rin, Nozomi and Maki the spotlight. While I enjoyed these episodes, I liked Rin’s not because she is one of my favorite idols, but I liked how her friends help her resolve her complex of not being able to see herself as being cute because of her short hair. Even so, there are still a lot of enjoyable moments outside these episodes such as Honoka’s diet woes and Muse girls up with crazy costume ideas just to generate impact.
On the other hand, I felt somewhat disappointed with A-Rise being treated as a goal rather than a true rival. Besides the first performance, I think that they are there just to motivate Muse to become better. In fact, we didn’t get to see them perform in the final preliminaries. Instead, the writers decided to show Honoka, Umi and Kotori struggle their way through a blizzard. To me, I would like to see them as an actual rival by allowing the viewers to see them perform like in the third episode so Muse’s win would feel more meaningful. Not only that, I bet most people want to see them perform “Private Wars” opposed to watching the snowstorm melodrama.
As a whole, I felt that the second season of Love Live School Idol Project is just as enjoyable as the prequel, just with more heartwarming moments. While the animation quality looks just as good, I’m still bothered by the use of CG since Muse’s performance still looks awkward. What baffles me is that A-Rise’s performance of “Shocking Party” looked better because it’s animated. I suppose Sunrise didn’t want to go through the trouble of animating all 9 girls. Not only that, most of the songs Muse sung are completely/mostly in unison, thus making it sound as if it lacked character even if its good. If they presented some of the songs from the three subunits (Printemps, BiBi and Lily White) of Muse or even solos, I think it would leave a better impression on the viewer. Despite these flaws, I still enjoyed the sequel and its worth checking out if you enjoyed the first season.
