Reviews

Oct 17, 2021
Mixed Feelings
I see a lot of people being nice to this show, and while I kinda see why, I also really don’t. In Japan, Love Live is an insatiable money-making behemoth whose appetite only grows with the eating, but here in the West, it’s largely mocked by the mainstream. But apparently not Superstar. What other people are getting out of this show is something I can’t get out of it, and it might just be because I’ve seen too much. It might just be because I’ve become numb, and maybe if this was the first time I’d ever seen an idol show like this, there’d be stuff I could pick up on which didn’t seem like tired, insipid, clickbait garbage, but I’m too old and storied for that shit. I’m fine with media selling itself, I’m not a child, but when it comes to idols, the girls themselves are the products, and while an anime’s storyline can help dilute this reality, I can’t not see it, so everything just feels fake. Despite being well-directed, the concerts are totally non-diegetic, because they’re being shot from angles no in-universe camera could ever capture. One of the girls is an antagonist to a point, where upon the cast spends two episodes confronting her corny, melodramatic backstory, after which she immediately becomes part of the team even though she’s an outsider who everyone hated five seconds ago. A character travels from a competition in Tokyo to the Southern Islands before the sun can finish setting, waiting for her there is a costume which she never planned to have made, in which she performs flawlessly alongside the others despite not having practiced the set. The show is comprised of contrivance after contrivance after contrivance, thoughtlessly and lifelessly checking off boxes on a bulleted list of Love Live tropes required by the producers. Not every relationship feels this soulless, and not every action feels this manufactured, but to those pretending like this series is significantly more genuine than any other installment of Love Live, I’m afraid I must disagree.

After all these years of having watched thousands and thousands of anime, I’ve deduced by far the easiest way to dismiss a series is to scrutinize its production, because most anime look like shit and cut so many corners they become entirely different shapes. Indeed, most generic trash actually LOOKS like generic trash, but this doesn’t. This looks legitimately impressive, and since I couldn’t write it off, I had to endure it, and the technicality behind the concerts was so jaw-dropping, I cannot pretend I didn’t have fun here. The girls have their gimmicks, but their character designs are so much more individualized than previous installments of Love Live, it’s commendable. Love Live girls have always had copy/pasted faces, bodies, hairstyles, and personalities, only adding enough of a difference between them to be legally distinct, but this show breaks the mold in that respect completely. Each girl looks and acts like a separate human being, not like a slight variation of a figurine, body pillow, or cardboard cutout which you already own. They aren’t deep, and some of the forced backstories I mentioned earlier certainly bogged down the script, but the girls are still pleasant and cute. It feels like everyone creatively involved in this project has improved measurably. We all know Yoshiaki Fujisawa is a genius, and while Jukki Hanada still can’t write convincing drama, he still can write funny dialogue and natural chemistry between characters. Love Live has singlehandedly revolutionized the landscape of CG, and Director Kyougoku has absolutely mastered the art of transitioning between the mediums of 2D and 3D. The CG integration is better than some Production IG shows, and the CG itself outclasses Studio Orange. This show is no visual masterpiece, and episodes seven and eight saw heavy inconsistency, but the animators absolutely pampered these girls as much as they possibly could, even if they only exist to fuel Bandai’s merchandising.

Thank you for reading.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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