Love Live! Superstar!! 2nd Season

With this being the third anime installment in the Love Live! saga (not including Nijigasaki which is a separate entity), Superstar!! had a lot of pressure among the larger LL community to live up to expectations that would recreate a familiar formula while also providing something new to entice the fans. Unfortunately, it has failed at this goal, and nothing short of a miracle can salvage this anime series. While there's much that can be said about Superstar!! in regards to its plot, like retaining a common structure comparable to School Idol Project and Sunshine!!, it manages to do incomprehensibly worse than its predecessors at telling acoherent narrative. What sold this show to me to get this low of a rating though has been the characters and their dynamic with one another, which is practically nonexistent if Shibuya Kanon is not involved. As opposed to both μ's and Aqours (as well as Nijigaku), Liella, the idol group in this anime, only comprises five members in contrast to the usual nine… only until it doesn’t, deciding to add an additional four members (Shiki and Mei are amazing, the same can't be said for Natsumi and Kinako) while leaving the original five, minus Shibuya Kanon, with little character growth besides comedic bickering (Keke and Sumire) or last minute dialogue (Ren and Chisato). Had Liella! followed its initial vision from the start of the series, there was the possibility of developing closer and perhaps more realistic character interactions than seen in the previous installments. With how the characters have interacted with each other so far in both this and the prior season though, this seems to be unlikely to happen even with an unprecedented third season. At the end of the day though, Love Live! at its core is a music anime, and wow does Superstar!! fail to deliver in this category. While in the insert songs present in the anime are mediocre at best to downright awful at worst (the b-sides of their singles are amazing though, and it’s infuriating these superior songs weren’t featured in the anime like they should’ve been), the true musical aspect of Superstar!! that it shares with his predecessors has been the original soundtrack. At least, that’s what I would’ve said had they built upon the soundtrack from the first season instead of recycling the same two themes whenever something even slightly emotional happens (call it the Ren funeral song when a somber piano and/or violin plays). In other words, this season managed to make me have utter disdain for the one element of a Love Live! anime that never failed to disappoint me. I gotta hand it to Superstar!! Season 2 for pulling off the unthinkable ^^ Whether you're a diehard fan of Love Live! or just stumbled upon this anime by mistake, I would strongly avoid giving Love Live! Superstar!! a watch so long as you're interested in a compelling story, relatable characters wanting to achieve their dreams, or great music. For those who are among the Love Live! community that have decided to give Superstar!! a skip, I applaud you for making the right call, as School Idol Project, Sunshine!!, or Nijigasaki are all infinitely better stories within the Love Live! franchise, and only deserve far more love than the trainwreck that has been Liella’s journey. What could’ve been a fresh and beautiful story about a group of friends going through their three years of high school together to win the biggest idol competition in Japan, what we got instead was nothing short but disappointing, especially as someone who had high hopes for this group when they first debuted. Overall, a 2/10 for Love Live! Superstar!!

Worst Love Live season in my opinion. The downgrade from season 1 in story quality is just something else. I completed the season but still don't get why they added the new characters because they play such a small role. The absolutely destroyed Kanon's character and did the most BS ending with her in the final episode at the last minute. I thought was a actually a good conclusion of her character for season 2 but they did not commit to that at all. The art and animation is the good like season 1 but the rest is just bad. Music compared to season 1 was adowngrade too. The songs are good songs but are not as good and memorable as season 1. With season 3 announced I am not sure what they are going to do because literally there is almost nothing left and at this point just feels like they are just making for making another season. My score: Story: 3/10 Characters: 4/10 Music: 7/10 Animation: 10/10 Art: 10/10 Overall: 6.5/10

New season, new member, new song, new rival. We will now continue to follow the story of our fellow Liella member on their 2nd years of high school. With the school popularity increasing because Liella live show last season, the school is saved from closing down. And now they have a new goal. Win Love Live tournament and recruiting new members for Liella. Even though we are not facing a graduation problem like every previous Love Live anime, it can still give us some emotional story. I'm not saying previous Love Live installment is bad its just a breath of fresh air to not see thisgraduation problem on 2nd season of Love Live. Instead we get served with new and unique story only Liella could have. We have heavy problem that include tears dropping everywhere. And we also have the silly problem like gaming addiction, yes idol anime girls with gaming addiction. That is my favorite episode. Though we got new members now, the old members is not forgotten. We can still see their characters development, even more deep into their personality and personal struggle. At early episode is what i thought the best in context of characters. Because everyone act so realistic to the situation. One example is how the 1st years feel insecure around their upperclassmen. You should watch it yourself really. One thing that still didnt fit for me is their new rival. How she introduced and her act is just weird. I mean its unique, but still kinda weird. There isn't any significance change in art from season 1. They still got the colorful and vibrant animation style. Plus now there is a lot of new characters design with bright hair color. Actually this affect me on pre-anime hype. There's this one girl who's hair color is normal, she looks like background characters. But after we got introduced to her in the anime, she just as interesting as the other new member. The development of their friendships as they work towards their goal of becoming successful idols is heartwarming and inspiring. I give every seiyuu involved a thumb up for their great job. Not only they voicing the characters, but also sing and perform all the song they produce in real life. If they dance inside the anime, they use CGI and I can tell you that it is beautifully smooth. But to be honest, there are no songs that stuck in my head. They all sound so generic, except the ED song. Beside from that, nothing grasp my feeling. Despite all the flawless this anime have, I still enjoy it overall and give it a 9/10. This is the first anime that didn't get a perfect score in my 2 years of watching anime. Doesn't mean its bad, it is still a great anime but lack something small. Either that or my taste in anime advanced as I watch more and more anime every season, I hope its not the latter. Anime scoring beside, I'll definitely rewatch this anime if its get a dub. Thats all I can say about this anime. Thank you for reading my review.

Is this season better than the one before it? No, it clearly isn't. Is it, however, worth watching? Yes, the show was able to maintain its consistency in terms of comedy and SoL-like factor. This season introduced new characters, including a rival named Wien Margaret, who appeared halfway through the season. The story for this season can basically be summed up in a few sentences: first-year students joins Liella!. Liella! fights for the honor of representing their region. Liella! defeats Wien Margarete, as expected. And Kanon Shibuya gets invited to study abroad at one of the most prestigious music schools, which is the final and mostunexpected event in this season (With a 360 turn). The plot in general was mediocre and lacked the spark that the previous season possessed. The show's finale did not help matters either. For the positives: The addition of new members added more personality to the group, making Liella! more lively and adding more drama to the show. Wien Margarete's singing surprised me, as it did most people, since she was clearly the best singer and had the best songs this season. And as for the negatives: The songs this season aren't as good as those from previous season or other Love Live series, but they're still worth a listen and adding to one's playlist. The introduction of the new members also had little impact; aside from Shiki Wakana and Mei Yoneme, who are at least decent, the other two's reasoning for joining and becoming idols didn't make much sense. And, let's be honest, Wien Margarete joining the fray as a rival was a bit of a puzzle, as it appears she was thrown in for the sake of being an antagonist and having a new and fresh face. In general, I believe that the comedy and SoL aspect truly distinguishes this Love Live series from the others, as it manages to keep us engaged, from being sad, happy, to a genuine heartwarming moment, as that this series is designed to be light-hearted and a switch your brain off series to manifest different types of emotion. This is a show that is about feeling good rather than heavy drama. Given how engaging the story was in the previous season, I expected more from this season in terms of story and execution, but it is still worth watching. I would recommend the show to the following people: - Fans of Slice of Life. - Fans of Comedy. - Fans of Love Live. I would not recommend the show to the following people: - Not a fan of dull or boring stories with little to no progression. - Not a fan of drama that doesn't elicit much emotional response.

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