Did Sunrise learn from the past season and brought something better? Hell yeah, and not only.
The first new update that Nijigasaki got are 3 new girls, unsurprisingly to those who follow the irl group and begged to have them so badly in the anime. They delivered.
I honestly had no concerns about how Nijigasaki was going to develop with 3 new characters and I knew that something good was going to come out, but not something that good.
The big piece is absolutely Lanzhu for now and she left me with my mouth opened after the first episode : she is incredibly arrogant, she feels perfect, she is hot headed and most of all she wants to be the best. Is there anyone that can keep up with her? Yes and that person is even herself that limited again herself with the idea of being a solo artist unlinked to the Nijijgaski School Idol Club, which is counter productive but at the same time is something that I loved because it was a declaration of war to the original group. This girl needed a reality check because you can’t live in an eternal Eutopia, and she got one. A big and aggressive one, just like how it should be expected from anyone. I really loved Lanzhu for the many controversial decisions she took in the anime and how she went absolutely extreme with the choices.
Then we have a splendid character, Mia. Mia has a very particular of producer and singer with Lanzhu and she has the role of the producer; she arrived in the school to continue her studies to become a great musician just like anyone from her family but can she deliver under pressure?
Mia’s role in the anime was one of my favourites of all because she never cared about the school idol club, rightfully, yet she always helped Yuu with the music and lyrics for each song and she kept doing all over a certain realisation arrived and she decided something, something completely out of her style and never thought of : making a song for someone else that you will sing. Isn’t this just beautiful? Music connects people, the music can bring happiness and she could finally follow what everyone follows : the Stars we chase.
And finally we come to Shioriko, the biggest question mark for many many reasons that I won’t explain because you need to play the mobile game and this is not the mobile game. I felt like Shioriko was more of a side character because I rarely saw her really in the action, proper action, unlike Mia and Lanzhu, one actively helping Yuu and the other actively going against the School Idol Club, but instead she was more like sitting in the corner and saying “Yeah ok don’t worry I will give you a little hand”, and there is a reason to this. We will meet Shioriko’s big sister, who is the key to everything for her little sister : events of the past are holding Shioriko from making the jump she needs and also wants to make, passion cannot be stopped, but something was holding herself back like the fear of doing something that should never happen again, is it the fear of making someone feel disappointed? Or is it the fear of failing? Who knows. At the end of everything Shioriko was a great one. She was able to let our her Emotions and show everyone what she truly feels about everything and everyone, how she wants to make everyone and especially her big sister proud of her. This is a great revolution for a person right?
I really liked the execution of the three new girls, it wasn’t really rushed but done slowly at a good pace while mixing it with the other arcs that were more complicated to execute. Lanzhu, Shioriko and Mia are all three different girls with three different ambitions yet they all are bonded more than anyone else and cannot be separated, even if this goes your own ideals.
But there are no reasons to make 13 episodes of only them right?
It took a lot to show up and we actually got a taste of them in the previous season but not a real proper one, this season finally made everyone happy and brought some story to the creation of each sub unit, which was fun to say the least.
We got to meet QU4RTZ (Kasumi, Kanata, Rina and Emma), a sub unit solely made out of friendship between the girls and they got even 2 episodes dedicated.
We got to meet DiverDiva (Karin and Ai), a sub unit formed by the healthy and good rivalry of Ai and Karin born as a result of Ai’s private problems.
We got to meet AZUNA (Ayumu, Shizuku and Setsuna), born out of circumstances that my brain refuses to process after the insane amount of doujinshi created after those two episodes but I do not complain.
The beauty of a sub unit is the entities that form it and the diversities because each sub unit has a different meaning that goes from the purest of the friendship to the sane competition, from singing hand in hand to make someone happy with the music to fighting on the stage with the lyrics and showing off the voice; but the circumstances that brought a sub unit to its creation are the most important because it can be after a simple idea, after a bet or after an activity and how the starting point develops into something bigger, better and that can represent its essence.
On top of all of these things the music was also good, and it had to be good.
I mentioned that I quite hated the pacing of the previous title because I felt it was really weak in terms of storyline but with the three new girls and the sub units I finally saw something more natural, smooth, that made the watch kind of great, of course there were ANYWAY moments when I felt bored but they weren’t too bad.
Nijigasaki massively improved on the good and not forced comedy, especially thanks to the new BEAUTIFUL and polished animations that finally became clearer.
I especially loved the Mia episode and the AZUNA one because they weren’t boring, they were fun and engaging, interesting and quite thrilling; clearly this anime had to keep on with traditions and every 2-3 episodes we were going to have a song and I liked most of them, maybe except one or two but it’s not a problem, and for once I didn’t hate having a random MV popping up randomly, unlike last season, but instead quite decently built up and lived to my expectations. I also want to compliment with the choice of including costumes of the girls that are directly from the mobile game, that was a sweet decision.
On a separate note we had some episodes that felt like fillers but weren’t really fillers : it was obvious that the development focused of the 3 new girls with the dedicated episodes AND THEN giving 4 episodes to the sub units was going to take already half of the series, and so what about the remaining plot? What about the premises of the School Idol Club about making their activities something bigger and more popular in order to attract new students to the school and also bring someone in the music world? Somehow it quite worked out. I mean the conclusion was reached but at times I quite felt that the execution was a little bit maybe too slow, or perhaps boring at parts; I’m talking like your average Love Live fan who is not a lot interested in the activities of the Nijigasaki side and so I’m talking rather like a normal user who approaches Love Live as a standard anime and not the result of an already defined product. If we talk by this point of view the execution of Nijigasaki at moments felt a little boring, honestly, and it wasn’t only me abut I got the same point of view from some friends. It is absolutely sweet and nice to make references to the real group, real activities and some famous events of the group but this is going to be understood only by those who actively follow this side of the franchise, and I mean it’s easily the majority but those who don’t really know won’t really get these things. It’s sweet to give to your audience what they love but it could end up as a halved experience for those who still don’t know. At least I got most of them because I follow a little bit the real group.
Putting aside everything I said Nijigasaki really learned from the previous season, because it wasn’t really the best and maybe even flat at times, and made everything better, bigger, funnier and more passionate without forgetting the formula of Love Live : a lot love, a lot of music and excitement.
And the ending, honestly it was absolutely beautiful and I value the ending of an anime a lot more than anything else.
I am finally satisfied with Nijigasaki after a first season that never convinced me, and quite hated at the first run, but finally I was able to get happy with the final result : I was able to feel the love, the passion, music that I finally liked, better animations, a story that finally had a meaning and even more than anything else I finally felt that the characters didn’t feel forced with development, instead a gradual development across the episodes with the highs and lows that everything has.
This second season is the result of a process of learning and understanding of the past that eventually led to a much better final result.
The experience of the second season for me was quite mixed with highs and lows, felt bored and madly excited, but at the end of everything it was a good and fun experience that I might would like to repeat but only time will tell me this.
I was a Nijigasaki hater but now I feel like I can finally accept this anime and like it like every other fan in the franchise, good job.
Personal scores :
Story : 7.5/10
Characters : 8/10
Music : 9/10
Animations : 8/10
Personal Enjoyment : 8.2/10
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