Love Live! School Idol Project

[nijlandp]

Title: Love Live! School Idol Project

Genre: Comedy, music

Synopsis:
Otonokizaka Academy is announced to be closing down after everyone graduates due to lack of applicants, much to the shock of second year student Honoka Kōsaka, who loves the school. As she and her classmates Umi Sonoda and Kotori Minami try to think of a way to make the school more attractive to prospective students, Honoka is surprised that her younger sister Yukiho wants to go to a different school, UTX, instead of Otonokizaka. As Honoka decides to investigate UTX, she finds it attracts a lot of students due a school idol group known as A-Rise. Honoka decides that the best way to save her school is to start an idol group themselves.

Impression:
At first it didn’t seem impressive. Just another anime about a group of students who want to save their school by doing something unique. The group decided to be a school idol group and perform to attract more people. Nothing special…however it actually is done very nicely. The girls are somewhat plain but as the focus in on the performances it doesn’t bother much. The third episode with the live performance was very good indeed. As expected they only attract one person at first but that number increases during the performance. Let’s hope that this series can do the same as the performance of this series deserves just like them a bigger crowd.

 

[Hyuuga]

I watched the first three episodes
It looks like it might be a decent series

 

[daft27]

If they can keep up the number of songs per episode ratio, I'll be happy to the end. I'm following this show for now.

 

[nijlandp]

I must say that this series hasn't disappointed me yet. We get a nice new song to follow the story of who is their captain. Honoka may not be the obvious choice at first but she overrides everyone with her enthusiasm and knows who is the choice for certain parts like music, lyrics, dance and practice drills. The opening of this series (which is worth mentioning as it is really good) suggests that next up the school council president and vice-president will join.
Looking forward to the next episode.

 

[nijlandp]

So now we know why the school council president is so negative about them. She is way better at dancing than they ever could be. It was nicely connected to the study group. That vice president is good at scheming: her actions drove the president into a corner and just as the vice president helps the group, the president is bound to help the group as well just to save the school. And sure they do need her as having a (probably former) professional ballerina in their group rises their chances a lot.

 

[Hyuuga]

QUOTE (nijlandp @ Feb 18 2013, 11:32 AM) So now we know why the school council president is so negative about them. She is way better at dancing than they ever could be. It was nicely connected to the study group. That vice president is good at scheming: her actions drove the president into a corner and just as the vice president helps the group, the president is bound to help the group as well just to save the school. And sure they do need her as having a (probably former) professional ballerina in their group rises their chances a lot.
I agree with you totally

 

[Silendris]

Auu~ this show makes me so happy! ^____^
Every new episode is like a sugarrush, an explosion of happiness and sweetness! I get all tingly after watching such episodes of sheer happiness and joy which this show grants me!
Finally seto kaichou-chan joins forces with our heroines! At long last!
I love this show so much! <(^____^)>

 

[nijlandp]

Again a pretty sound episode. The strength of the group improved a lot with the addition of the student council president and the vicepresident. Let's see what the group has now: a musician, a songwriter, a trainer who pushes the group, a choreographer, a person who knows all details and a captain. Look's like the group is really strong as it's able to make everything for themselves.
The song and dance were good to watch with the whole group. To have the biggest impact however they need to diversify i think. When singing and dancing as one group they can't show their biggest strength: a professional dancer who can perform a strong solo, a good singer and so on. Some time in the future they need to show that solo strength to get an edge.

 

[nijlandp]

I didn't find this new episode the best one yet. Sure it was nice to see her working as a maid in Akiba but why did we not get to see the whole performance with all of them as maids. It was daring to do a streetperformance to increase the popularity. Hopefully it will pay off. That remark that the area is part of that other group may be a hint to the future?? That group won't like it that they performed in their area.
That air mail letter bodes trouble..is someone going to study somewhere else?

 

[nijlandp]

This wasn't the best episode. Okay, it had a purpose to show the growing friendship between all the members of the group and even more that Nozomi is the real power behind the group. However it felt a bit dull. Nothing really to deepen the story happened and the part of getting Maki more involved in wasn't very strong. Only Nico felt to be fun as a sort of joker of the group. However something didn't add up about her..she didn't tell the truth about her homesituation. Even if she acted all high and mighty it felt somewhat wrong.
Also we didn't see who that air mail letter was for...

 

[Kit-Tsukasa]

Love Live! School Idol Project is based on a Japanese multimedia project that began in 2010. The anime adaptation focuses on the Love Live! cast trying to save their high school from shutting down due to low applicants. The franchise has spun off various music videos since its inception, some of which were included in the anime itself. Love Live! premiered in Winter 2012/2013 for 13 episodes, was simulcasted by CrunchyRoll and licensed by NIS America.


Love Live! is arguably the most “innocent” anime title in a while. The story is as simple as it gets: a group of girls with some sort of ambition in a highly believable setting with highly believable results. The show spends a bulk of its time recruiting members in the first half of the series and then moves on pursuing the ultimate goal. In this case, preventing the school from shutting down and attempting to participate in the Love Live! competition. Unlike most titles be it fantasy or a school-life setting, Love Live! is more realistic in that not everything always goes the way people wants it to. Members don’t automatically join and takes some convincing to do while exploring some character back story in the process. Furthermore, while the idea of Honoka getting sick the day of the deciding performance is an overused plot device, at least a “miracle” didn’t happen. The idea of Kotori leaving the group was rather random though and didn’t seem to add any significant development to the story. It seemed more as if the staff ran out of material to write in the final couple episodes and decided to simply stuff a random event in there to keep the plot moving. Conclusion feels weak not because there doesn’t seem to be a reason for muse to exist any more. They didn’t really have the same drive as they did from the get go. Other than that, there’s one main problem with this series: Tari Tari did the EXACT same thing less than a year ago with a far more interest cast and better hooks.

Art is generally nice for this show. Nothing in particular really stood out but it was certainly far from basic designs. Character designs are pretty much the same across the board. Same base with little creativity. A number of inconsistencies were also present particularly with long-distance shots and side-views of characters. The dance sequences are very nicely done as the CGI is much less noticeable than say in Pretty Rhythm -Aurora Dream- and to some extent AKB0048. Sunrise really put a lot of budget into the animation for this show and is certainly better than the other high school titles they did recently, namely Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, Phi Brain, and Natsu-iro Kiseki. Falls short in comparison to Binbougami ga! though.

OP and ED themes are average but fitting with the series. Inserts are a number of cheesy/fluffy originals similar to many K-ON! songs, some of which are from the music videos in the last few years. Background music is average coupled with above average sound effects. Seiyuu is mostly composed of up and coming ones in the industry, which is a perfect match for the series’s setting. Generally speaking, the cast and acting are very well done.

Enjoyment? My biggest problem is the lack of suspense factor in this show. Granted it’s a simple school life title, it may be too simple for its own good at times. There is little motivation to watch it when you have complex titles like Shinsekai Yori or suspenseful ones like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Initial D: Fifth Stage in the same season. The show is a good time waster for its innocence and plausibility but generally falls short in comparison to say The iDOLM@STER. I have yet to finish AKB0048 -Next Stage- so I’ll refrain on that comment as I don’t like where the series is heading at the moment in the penultimate episode.

Overall, Love Live! is by no means a gem title. It’s a fluff series that can be really breezed through or overlooked as there are a number of titles that outclass it, namely Tari Tari, The iDOL@MSTER, Lemon Angel Project, and to some extent, K-ON! if you still consider that in the same category. For what Love Live! does as a standalone, it is by no means bad but simply average.

Preliminary Score: 5/10
Final Score: 5/10

 

[Azzuen]

Where is the second season on here? I can't find it anywhere on the site. Did it for some reason need to not be posted on here?

 

[Barbobot]

A bit tangentially related, but the Love Live smart phone game was released in english for iOS/Android. It's only a pretty basic rhythm game, but goddamn is it addictive. It just hits that collector's nerve in me and makes me want to collect all the different idols in them and level them all up.

As for the 2nd season, not much huge to add. It just continues with the same energy and glee that was in the first season and continues to be great. Episode 6 had me cracking up when they all were imitating each other and then when they dressed up as KISS was just overkill.