Ok I watched the first season and I have a lot of thoughts. The first few episodes are pretty good, standard love live things. I liked Karin’s character, Rina’s episode, and Ayumu and Yuu’s arc. In fact Ayumu and Yuu’s drama is the most interesting thing that happens in the show. But I digress.

After the episode where Karin decides they’re all Rivals and they can’t all stand on the same stage together the show started rage baiting me istg. They act like they’re all so insanely different they could never work as a group, meanwhile they are no different from each other than any of the other seasons. In fact, most of them don’t really have any personalities. Emma and Shizuku in particular, their personalities are simply the things they like. Shizuku’s episode confused me so bad. She was like oh noooo my dark side no one could ever love. And it was that she liked old movies as a kid??? What. And her personality is no different before and after she opens up her ‘true self’ to Kasumi. Huh? My girlfriend described it well in that it feels like something else was supposed to be written for her but was taken out.

After this point, every episode feels like an elaborate explanation as to why they need to keep standing on separate stages, despite how it doesn’t seem to service any of them in a meaningful way any more than being in a group would. Another small thing, when they all stand next to each other in their extremely differing stage costumes it looks very unappealing to me. But that’s a personal thing. They really never have any meaningful strife or struggle than isn’t resolved within 10 minutes, the only thing they had was getting rained out but. Sunshine already did that plot but WAY better. And two it made no sense that those random people were waiting hours in the rain for a festival which was. Watching one girl perform on one stage?? What a scam if this was real why can’t I just pay to watch all of them go simultaneously at the same place so that everyone can see their message. But nooooo everyone needs to have their own separate thing, which ultimately makes the characters feel very distant from each other. I really never felt the group come together in the first season.

This being said. The Ayumu BPD coded jealous girlfriend arc was INSANE they don’t make yuribait like that anymore. In fact I honestly felt it was straight up yuri like. It was such a thinly veiled metaphor for it I gasped. Their phones falling on top of each other when Ayumu tackled Yuu onto the bed??? The conclusion being them promising to stay together forever? Holding hands all the time? Oh my god. I almost wish they made Ayumu more interesting and had it be that she didn’t care much about other fans wishes, just Yuu’s. But love live doesn’t really do stuff like that. I thought Shizuku was going to be sooo cool but no… sad face. I was sad because I truly love love live and wanted this to be good. And the beginning was fine!!! But the end really let me down. Maybe second season is better.