To me, Love Live!, has a really special place in my heart. The franchise was able to help me through really difficult times and it made me experience things I would’ve never thought of.
This whole franchise is more of just an anime, it’s a true inspiration at least for me of never giving up and to fight always for your dreams; it may sound childish but it’s the reality, if you don’t fight for them then you are not living your life.
I laughed, I cheered, I cried, I was hyped, I was sad, I was thankful and most of all I am happy.
Whoever knows me know that I’ve reviewed every Love Live and the Sunshine review is my most successful yet and that doesn’t mean that I will go soft on Superstar!!
Not at all.
I wasn’t sure of what to expect from Superstar, there is a completely new formula and I was really interested to discover all the new things they had for us fans.#For the very first time I want to say it : this is the best possible, the characters and the story are absolutely perfect
This time we have totally everything different and howdy, this start was brilliant.
How can I express the first 3 episodes? I think I can just say “realistically fantastic” and I’m not afraid to say this was the best start of any Love Live yet because for the first time we had what Love Live almost kinda lacked in the first episodes : seriousness.
Wait wait don’t get me wrong, I will never say a thing against Honoka and Chika because they are both one of the best written characters I’ve ever seen, but what I mean is the reason of how the school idol group was born.
µ’s were a little bit lucky with the rankings in the early start while Aqours were a little bit like a fun group not aiming for something great yet.
Instead here in Superstar there’s the X factor I always wanted to see : the determination of overcoming your biggest weakness;
Keke is a character I must spend some words with because she is the Y factor for the anime; yeah she is kinda random because she came to Japan just because she fell in love with the school idols, but I still cannot blame her because if you admire something you want to become like that or at least to catch it. But that’s not her main point. Her shine comes from how she was cheering Kanon through everything and when she was struggling Keke was there to cheer her up. She is a real hard worker for what she dreams of : the first 3 episodes shown us how she really worked out hard to become better and better, surpassing her biggest weaknesses, and even she is a human, as she was struggling on the main stage before Tiny Stars, but knowing she is not alone could help her.
If I can say it, I personally consider episode 3 as one of the best episode of the whole franchise. It rarely happens but here I felt the passion of the girls, how they wanted to pursue this impossible dream, because winning the Music Festival was impossible for a new born group, but their burning fire of determination was incredible; arguably the best part was Keke shaking of fear, it shows you that, even if she seemed the most sure of herself one about being an idol, the anime makes you understand that she is human anyway. This episode was really special because you could see how much they cared about winning the Fest to start their new dream. Of course, it’s not easy because you are starting from a point of literal nothing, you have no experience and most of all no one knows you. But let the song begin, it will speak for itself.
I must call Sumire a pure surprise. She is the complete opposite of what I was thinking of her. I used to snob her as the new Nico but more social media like or public, instead I had a feeling of something that I know really well. When you are not in your spot, your real spot which you deserve and instead you start falling down and down in an endless circle of failures and giving up on anything because at some point you will say “it doesn’t matter how hard I try, this will always be what I get” and personally I wouldn’t be satisfied at all with something that doesn’t suit me.
And I must say again, I love Kanon, she is so well written. “Then take away the center from me. Compete against all of us”, this single line made my blood boil and my soul burn from determination because this is what it truly means to be a leader. GO scout who wants to be scouted, make the others enjoy what they are doing, make them love it and give everything they have. GALAXY.
Chisato was my biggest question mark. I wasn’t able to discover much about her properly before the airing of the anime, and I thought she was going to be a dead side character. Glad I was wrong. Right from the start Chisato has been a focus point for the plot and how the story went, being a friend, if not the best friend, of Kanon was the best choice of all here. Saying what I think about Chisato, or even more how she is, is hard to me because she showed us many important and special sides of her; the confidence, her deep love for dancing, how much she cares about Kanon and how she trains hard the girls even if she is not a member of the group yet. I was completely blown away by her in the end : I will never forget her tears in episode 3, I will never forget her double episodes and I don’t want to forget how funny she is. She got introduced as Kanon’s childhood friend and, for how odd it is, it goes well for the development of everything. Her double episodes were flawless and I’m not saying it because I love this anime, not at all, but I’m saying because I really think it; I could feel and I know how she felt, mostly because I’ve experienced this, but the best part was that she actually always wanted to join Liella. She had been fighting her inner demons of winning the dance competition, and for how sad it is the dance course is on the way of joining Liella, and making such decisions are not that easy; it’s never easy to give up on something you’ve been loving for so much. But Liella were something special for her and so it was time for her, it was her time.
Dear dear Ren, I used to bet so much on her even before Superstar. I kinda have a weird love for the Presidents girls with long hairs that hate school idols at the beginning, especially because she has long and black hairs. I wasn’t expecting such a strong character.
Ren is like a racing car : she will aim straight forward without stopping if it’s not something really important or game changing; and that’s her and her dream, or by any means her way to see things. This girl got deeply and badly shattered in the past by many unfortunate events which led her to ending in almost complete poverty and, completely, alone.
Indeed one of the biggest news in this Love Live is a certain topic which has never got touched : death. Due to circumstances Ren is alone now and her memory of her mother are the only thing she has left. This girl’s only example is the mother, who now is gone, and her desire to make the school the best in music is her only dream; which was also his mother’s dream.
This was absolutely a difficult task because changing the idea of someone who got moved so much by such a tragic event is not easy, at all; it wasn’t easy, but discovering the truth made a miracle happen.And so they became 5, and so Liella! was born.
Isn’t it frustrating to never feel at the right spot always and not being able to express the best version of yourself? It is and a lot, I have to say.
Episode 10, to my eyes, is just one of those episodes I will never forget for the rest of my life and it doesn’t matter who is my favourite character, who I dislike and who I feel neutral to; we are all simple humans when we are in front of what is the apex of dedication, desire, love and determination.
I’ve never been a Sumire fan, at all, and I’ve always felt indifferent to her, except for when she was funny, but that’s the nice part of Love Live : discovering sides of a character you’ve never seen and, eventually, understanding their frustration towards the world. Sumire is a complex character : she acts as she were the peak of the human realisation, she always wants the top spot and she thinks of being able to do anything; and I mean it’s true and she doesn’t realise this, but what I’m trying to say is that she always felt that way because she never had the right tools and opportunities to show how great she really is. As a kid she was forced to play the side character and she was being told “It’s an important role anyway”; the same thing is a little bit with the anime : her original episode didn’t show us how great she could be and only let out her funny and meme part, and some small sides of her personality but I didn’t mind much because that was more an episode about her finding the link with the other girls. Yeah the other girls. With Kanon she was always in that mood of challenging her to reach the peak, right from the start she wanted the centre position and Kanon, understanding how she truly is, just said “Then come and take it away from me”. Never asked for a better answer from Kanon.
With Chisato I’ve never seen any really important moments unfortunately and almost the same with Ren; but the game changer is with Keke. With Keke I hard a hard time understanding them because they quickly changed between best friends to enemies, depending on the moments, but what I could always see was that atmosphere of not necessarily “war” but of challenge between them two. Keke often challenged her and Sumire answered back. On some sides Keke is better and on other Sumire is better. But it all comes down to the point when you realise you are on the verge of losing someone for ever, someone that even if you always make fun of you really care about, and to be honest I don’t think most of the people want that; sometimes it’s time to put away your pride and do what’s right to do.
But what happens when you are mentally blocked because of past events that give you a feeling of being inferior? That’s a really bad spot which is hard to escape from. It’s a nonfiction that you are likely going to need someone that will make you understand, and that person was Keke, her biggest enemy but at the same time her biggest friend.
Make that person feel special and how she is really at the right spot, not stealing anyone’s spot or being bad at it; make her feel unique.
Yeah this is easily the biggest strong point of Superstar, the way every character behaves with each other. It’s not something that we have never seen in Love Live but not in such a beautiful form : in School Idol Project I’ve always felt not the greatest of all because it was often unlinked how the girls bonded, the second year with the second year and the third with the third and first with first, I don’t know if you get my point of view but just think about Rin and Hanayo or Eli and Nozomi; in Sunshine the thing changes because we see interactions between different years, you just need to think about the RikoYou episode where Mari had a big talk with You or even the YohaRiko episode with Riko and Yoshiko. But what about here that everyone is on the same year? What about the fact they are just 5 and not 9 like we were used to? What about the fact we are still at the first season?
Those are all legit question and all of them have an answer : starting from the point of start, the 5 first year girls were the biggest news and they way it worked was just fantastic because you didn’t have any tier to respect, not those many formalities and right from the start, more precisely from episode 10, I’ve started to feel that feeling of “wow, they are like a family now”. Liella’s special thing is really this one, bonding really well in such a short time and it doesn’t feel forced at all, it’s really natural and human.
Yeah “human”, another strong spot of this anime. The most human character here is, nah it’s everyone. Kanon had to face her biggest weakness and fear, Sumire had to face her fake vision of the world, Ren had to face a fake dream she thought was real, Chisato had to face the risk of failing because of her desires on what she loves and Keke had to risk everything.
I decided to keep the best for the ending of this section : Kanon.
Kanon left me speechless many times, starting from her voice to her behaviour with the others; I kinda struggle finding the words because she is one of the most unique characters in the whole franchise but let’s go with order : She is a really shy girl insecure of herself and with a trauma of her past about singing. She is not able to sing in front of the public, because as a kid she failed to do that, but regardless this she LOVES singing a lot, really a lot, and take it as a joke of destiny she became a school idol. Kanon loves Liella and she feels safe with them, she completely forgets about her fears, and the best example of it is when she was about to start singing Tiny Stars with Keke; she was completely struggling and she was stuck, thinking if she could ever do it, thinking if she could ever overcome her fear, but seeing Keke scared as well made her understand how important that moment is. And so let the song begin.
This is the first time I see the iconic orange haired girl being the leader not because of her attitude to never giving up, but just because I really feel like she has to be the leader : she cares a lot about the other girls, she loves singing, she loves being an idol, she fights for being an idol and now she is fighting with everyone for the Love Live and here comes the best part of all for her :
Episode 11. This episode was really important for the anime itself because it set Kanon as the pure leader and let her overcome her childhood fears; I say many times that is really hard to overcome something alone, not like someone can be too weak to do it by itself or because I don’t believe it’s actually possible, and it’s because most of the times we need to see and understand how really is the reality of the world : Kanon thought her not being able to sing in front of the public was because of her past and just failing that day; but we grow up and we improve, most of the times, and that was her opportunity but she couldn’t see it by herself.
And here come Chisato proving why she is such a fantastic and perfect childhood friend for her, she is always caring about Kanon and she really always wanted to be important and “useful” to at least her; in the past she felt to being useless and just too much for her but she has always been wrong about that. Chisato created the best ever plan possible for Kanon and finally she could understand and most of all she was able to sing in front of everyone.
What I’ve been trying to say is that for the first time we have a Love Live where all the main girls are singing and dancing for pure passion. I’m not discrediting SIP or Sunshine, I’m still a huge fan of them, but I’ve always felt some girls there weren’t born to sing.
Let me explain : starting from the basis, Kanon always loved music as she was in the school choir as a kid.
Chisato wanted to have something unique for her that she could love and be obsessed with it a way to tell Kanon she wanted to become like her, to have something she could be the number one.
Keke is purely in love with school idols and she literally has everything to lose for this passion, I’m not even going to complain because I relate to this feeling and I support it. In my basketball days I used to do anything for the sport.
Sumire sees Liella! as a way redeem herself against the show business, since it snobbed her badly, but she found a group of friends she find are fantastic,
Ren, on the other hand, is living her dream of being an idol to follow the steps of someone; on one hand to hope for a miracle and on the other for the pure love of this.
You can see they are all passionate girls living their dream, fighting to win and become who they want to become to keep high the name of their School and, who knows, maybe to reach the peak like some others were able to do it, right?
I will give a section to SunnyPa because they deserve it, those two girls despite they seem some villain like, they were crucial in the early stages of Liella!. Yeah I think it’s mainly also thanks to them if they were able to become the next Love Live generation because they pushed them in the middle section of the story, and yes they aced Chisato to make her join them. Sadly they didn’t have that much screen time and I’m not really a fan of their unique song, the only one we’ve seen, but I have high hopes for the second season to become famous like Saint Snow in Sunshine and not thrown in the trash like A-RISE in SIP.
Love Live has taught us that not always everything can go as we would like, and there is no road to success without failure, but we need to move on and rise up again; nothing is over until it’s not really over.
#The music is on a whole new level, again Starting right off I will tell you : I’m a person who likes Rock, Hard Rock, Doom Eternal OSTs and anything which is energetic or aggressive or simply funny to listen to. Talking about the Love Live franchise my best examples are Guilty Kiss, DiverDiva, Aina and Liyuu for the music; I just love the way they sound. The preview of Liella! before the airing of the anime made me doubtful because the very first songs weren’t what I truly like according to my music taste and so I was a little bit anxious for the anime. Glad I was wrong.
The Opening was one of those songs I didn’t like at the very start, but started to like it as the episode were airing and how I was being forced to listen to it on a discord server (ALB people always know what to do with me).
The Ending instead is one of my favourite among every songs I’ve listened; it’s so energetic, lovable and funny to listen to. Sayuri (Kanon)’s vocals are out of this planet and same for Nagisa (Ren), their voices are so incredibly big that they scare me. The instrumental is also fantastic.
Talking about the inserts :
“Mirai Yohō Halleluja!” Is the song that made me say “OH MY GOD KANON WHAT A VOICE” as she performed it flawlessly.
“Tiny Stars” is instead my second favourite song from the anime as it is so incredibly nice to listen to and completely caught my heart within the first seconds. Apart from the meaning of the song, everything about it I love it.
“Tokonatsu Sunshine” I used to call it “The song of the 2021 summer” because it reminded me, somehow, of the golden times of 2016 with all the Spanish singers blasting inside your house at night. Jokes aside this one is one of the funniest to listen to because of its music pace ad rhythm, the start of the song might be boring but right after the start it becomes incredibly nice.
“Wish Song” is a song which I don’t really like the instrumental, too soft and slow for me, but the lyrics are really an incredible big brainer.
“Dreaming Energy”, unfortunately, didn’t really have its real space in the anime if not as a simple OST covered by the dialogues of the girls. The song itself is really nice and funny, something I would listen to while working out for sure.
“Nonfiction!!” Is just a masterpiece of the music industry, I completely love everything about it starting from the visuals to the song itself. It’s so catchy and incredibly different from the normal Love Live thing; it is supposed to be rap even if, unfortunately, I truly cannot see that much of it if not some lines but MY GOD IT SLAPS SO HARD THAT MY FACE HURTS.
"Watashi no Symphony" is a crazy song because Kanon literally goes on God mode and wow, her vocals are crazy
"Starlight Prologue" is just wow, I have no words.Talking about the real singers: Wow, in this season we a cast full of pure talents with some of the most crazy and best, powerful, full of energy and unique voices I’ve ever listened to.
Sayuri Date (Kanon) is without many doubts a pure freak of nature, her voice is incredibly powerful and full of personality that I completely love listening to it; I’m completely amazed by her high notes and her shout parts are just mind-blowing. Mirai wa Kaze no You ni is a piece of art.
Naomi Payton (Sumire) has fantastic soft voice in most songs and, even if I struggled at the beginning to recognise her in the songs, I really love it.
Nagisa Aoyama (Ren) doesn’t make any sense at as I refuse to listen to a voice like hers, it’s literally too big to call it a “voice”. Let’s call it a masterpiece ok? Jokes aside the way she sings is not human and I see her as a more deep Sayuri : strong voice, fantastic high and low key notes and a lot of shape in her voice.
Nako Misaki (Chisato) is just too cute with her voice, I’m completely in love for how it sounds cute and calm; then I listen to Nonfiction and I go crazy.
Liyuu (Keke), we have to talk here. I know Liyuu since before the start of the airing of Superstar and she is one of my favourite signers out here : warm voice, really cute, you love to listen to it and yeah I’m a big fan of her; but I kinda feel like she is being scammed in Superstar because of the Keke voice, she cannot unleash her full potential and I swear in songs like Carpe Diem or Magic Words she is OH MY GOD FANTASTIC. But on another note the Keke voice suits the songs really well, take as an example Tiny Stars : she sounds gorgeous. Plus she is based with her Chinese and that’s a +100 points.
#The technical part is outstanding
I will be honest, I rarely praise Sunrise’s arts in a first season of Love Live because, yeah, in SIP I wasn’t a fan of the arts and the first season of Sunshine was just decent, especially in the first half, when it comes to animations. But my God, Superstar was really mind-blowing. I mean we are not at the perfection tier but the first season is already impressive in many spots :
The expressions of the face are fantastic, they are well designed and just fantastic;
The general ambient is always top of the notch as it is very diverse and full of details.
Big props to Sunrise for knowing how the fanbase is for the memes and they delivered many.
Talking about the CGI : finally I can proudly say it’s fantastic and at its best.
In the past we had the average tier SIP 3D animation which was kinda meh, but considering the year it came out I won’t complain too much.
We had Sunshine which was a great step up, but to my eyes not really that satisfying but I could easily live with it.
Nijigasaki was a really huge level up as it was really beautiful and nice to see.
Here in Superstar everything changes because now the CGI is incredibly good; I can easily take Tiny Stars and Nonfiction as the best examples because they are incredibly well done and I love this new kind of digital animation, I never expect perfection in this particular section because reaching the level of a studio like Ufotable is almost impossible but when it’s done right I’m happy.
#Conclusions Sunrise really delivered and I’m completely amazed by the execution of this Love Live, as I said at the beginning I didn’t know what to expect because I thought I saw everything from this franchise but wow, I can only say wow. They’ve taken everything to the next level and the execution of the first season I would say it’s the best so far since there aren’t that many problems and it’s really fun, full of content and entertaining. I’m really happy, really, and I cannot wait for the rest of Superstar, with a song that can link the hearts of everyone. And that’s it, that’s my review of Superstar that I wrote with all of my heart, analysing everything I could and I absolutely loved it. I think my score is perfectly justified and I would ask you to read everything I wrote in case you’ve skipped here just to see the score. I thank you all for your time.
Story : 10/10
Characters : 10/10
Music : 10/10
Arts and animations : 10/10
Personal enjoyment : 10/10