I never found the appeal of animes like idolm@ster, Aikatsu, K-on, and the like. I've never been that big about slice of life. Out of the three other anime's I mentioned, I tried out K-On and didn't much care for it. And hearing about Love Live at first I just turned a blind eye to it.
But then I watched it. First off what's so great is that the main characters didn't wish to form a group out of a desire to be famous or out of sheer boredom. They did it with a clear goal to save the school (Except for Nico but that's part of Nico's charm) Each character has an individual reason to want to save the school and an individual way that gets them to join the group.
They're not there to just get famous and popular and thats a huge part of why I enjoyed the story and kept along with it. But also... the characters. They've all got refreshing personality to them on top of great design. Nico and Kotori are my personal favorites, mostly because Nico's a huge trope on the typical snobby idol that everyone turns a blind eye too or even make fun of on top of her catchy Nico nico niii. Kotori's one of the few moe blob characters that are so sickeningly sweet that I want to hold forever, and near the end what she had to decide on wrenched my heart.
I think the animation in this anime is superb. I just love the way the characters look in general, something about their anime design is just great to look at, fluid, and precious. It's one of the few anime i've oogled at and muttered to myself "I love how the characters look." That said, I'm not too fond of the style they used in dance sequences, if you've watched the anime you should know what i'm talking about. I hadn't looked into it, but it looks more like game models to me. And if done right that'd be great (Like Show by Rock!!'s mumon sequences) But something about the dance sequences (Barring than the flashes to the anime's usual beautiful animation) It looks a bit lifeless and tacky.
Sound is a mixed bag and I'm sure just like everything songs I dislike others will love. Personally I really loved A-RISE's song, it was really catchy and I could see why they have so many fans. A lot of the inserts for u's on the other hand were really simple and a bit kidlike for the most part. But I believe that was more the anime's way of getting across that, yes, they're amateurs. And their quality does get better over time. (Especially if you play the iphone game, there's a ton of songs done by the group outside of the anime that is HANDS DOWN GREAT like Anemone Heart or Mermaid Festa)
What I especially liked was how the ending theme was done. Whoever was a large focus for that episode, typically gets to do a solo of the theme song. It was very cool of them to do that, and interesting to see how each character sang the same song differently.
In general the anime was barrels of fun for me. I came in not expecting much, but especially near the end the drama they had to deal with was heart wrenching. I never thought an idol anime of all things could wound me like that. It has it's serious moments, and it makes you come to love the time they spend together happily even more. It was great watching them struggle to save the school, and I fondly recommend it to anyone. It's not just an idol anime. It's not even the main focus in my opinion. It's about the main characters becoming friends and their struggles to reach their goal.
