I preface because a lot of people online come to expect reviews to fit a mold of what they want which isn’t always realistic. For me, I just like to talk about anime I enjoy. And so this review is about such things. Sorry if this ain't what you're looking for.
This is where I summarize the entire review for you.
Love Live Nijigasaki (abbreviated to LLN in this review) is a 13 episode TV anime series released in Fall 2020. It was animated by Studio Sunrise (Gundam, Code Geass, all previous Love Lives) and directed by Tomoyuki Kawamura (Mitsuboshi Colors, PV for Muteki-kyuu*Believer and Mirai Harmony).
The anime’s source material is from multimedia (the SIFAS mobile game and other properties). This series can be described as a musical slice of life. If you’ve had previous experience with slice of life in general, you know that a lot of these stories tend to be episodic in nature with some mini overarching stories if they want it. It should be a given that you’ll expect some stories to wrap up in the episode you’re watching itself. Also, considering Love Live likes to treat its music sequences like musicals, it requires a suspension of disbelief regarding the logic of how these musical sequences play out.
If I had to think of one unique thing about this show, it’s the insert-songs. They were very unique and fire which can be a testament to the creators.
Having seen all of the Love Live anime and having a general good opinion of them. It’s possible to come into this show without having seen any of them which is a huge plus as it’s a lower barrier to entry. It’s a refreshing story for Love Live and they implement a similar plot structure like previous Love Live anime series. Also, they have done a great job in the characterization department which helps with cheering on a new group of characters.
For the visuals, it starts off incredibly strong that looks above-average for the beginning and ending episodes of the series, in-between the visuals look average to what you see in typical anime. The Music PVs (Previews) have their varying quality but I think overall it’s all well-done with some standing out as above-average. Regarding the usage of CGI, they have blended the 2D animation seamlessly with it like in Love Live Sunshine, there’s nothing that looks out of place. As for the animation, it feels like above-average in general for the whole show. While it has its powerpoint slide moments, it doesn’t feel littered with a lot of them.
For the audio department, the show offers stellar insert-songs from a large variety of composers and arrangers such as TeddyLoid and DECO*27. In comparison to previous entries, the insert songs stand up alongside their peers, in my opinion. As for the show’s audio and OST, they’ve been serviceable. While the Anime’s OP and ED fit the bill for what the show requires. When looking at the Seiyuu’s (Voice Actor) performances, some are serviceable while some were able to stand-out like Rina’s Seiyuu.
Overall, I’ve had no regrets watching this show while it was airing and I’m glad I gave it the chance. I would definitely give it a rewatch in the near future.
Would you like it? It’ll depend on your preferences in respect to slice of life story elements, music, and drama. I think the slice of life and music elements are very strong and if that’s something that appeals to you, try this out. The drama can vary in terms of quality for this season in particular and that’s not what I would recommend looking for.
On my personal rating scale for anime, I would give this an 8.5/10 which is between this being great and loving it. If you want to see more details about this scale, read the next section below. If you want to read the full review, read the rest of this review.
I think the common mistake with ratings is that we all tend to judge and associate each review rating on our own personal scale. When people see an average anime - they see that as a 5, some see that as a 6, and others as a 7. As you all know, we all have different tastes hence different rating scales and this is why I’ll post my scale below.
My Personal Rating Scale (Anime):
4 and below = I would've dropped this show already but made myself suffer through it for some reason. Regardless, this is the drop zone generally.
5 = This was really meh and I wouldn't take the time to rewatch.
6 = This was meh and I wouldn't watch it again unless I was forced to.
7 = It was okay and acceptable, it was good entertainment and I enjoyed the ride.
8 = This was a great story and I enjoyed the show/movie but it wasn't considered one of the best experiences. Just a great time overall!
9 = If I watched this show/movie for the first time, I'll love this a lot. It ain't life-changing but god damn I'll have one of the best experiences.
10 = This show resonated with me so hard - chills and intense emotional catharsis.
I feel like it’s important to display my biases. I’m a fan of Love Live and I’ve seen all of the Love Live anime:
My general opinion of LLSIP is that it had a janky S1 but it got better in S2 and had a great finish in the movie.
My general opinion of LLS is that it had a really strong S1, the S2 was weak at some parts with a great conclusion, and the movie was good entertainment.
Overall, my general opinion of Love Live is that it’s silly good fun for the most part but it has some real good moments when it wants to. This can be said for some idol shows I consumed like Idolmaster.
Your question could be, do I need to have seen LLSIP and LLS to watch this show? No. It isn’t required and I think that helps this show out a lot because it allows an easier barrier to entry into this franchise for newcomers to get a glimpse of why this franchise resonates with people.
I watched this show while it was airing through official subtitles in Japanese audio and English subtitles.
Now the review. I’ll be talking about the anime in the following categories:
1) Story / Plot / Characters
Holy shit, the story is refreshing for Love Live.
My biggest worry with this new anime’s story was that it would try to literally repeat LL SIP and LLS story-beats wise. Let me squash those worries away and say that the story presented is completely new in respect to LL SIP and LLS. It does NOT rely on knowledge from those stories/idol groups to appreciate and enjoy this show. LLN can be entered whether or not you know about Love Live’s previous anime and that’s a big win. If you started with LLN and want more, go experience those other stories.
Despite the story being new, that doesn’t mean this was completely innovative of the idol genre. I think this story is innovative within the Love Live franchise itself in respect to how they approached their characters and stories. There is a lot more focus on characterization and you feel like there’s a lot more personality shine through from the writing.
For being new, does this mean that LLN lost the unique qualities from previous stories? Naw, we see the silly comedy gags that make up the identity of Love Live present throughout. The songs are also taking the page from LLS in respect to presenting a variety of musical genres instead of the generic JPop that was present in LL SIP. LLN is able to take the good qualities from both LL SIP and LLS while adding its own spin to it with new ideas.
Like in the previous Love Live stories, there must be a suspension of disbelief in respect to the musical sequences. During those sequences, I treat them as musical videos or musical pieces in the show. When you watch a musical, they require a suspension of disbelief in regards to the logic of the stages. This requirement comes back again for the very unique stages that are brought on for LLN.
In Season 1, it’s episodic with a focus on one character at a time while weaving subplots around in the background. It’s nothing new if you’ve watched episodic anime before.
If you know the formula from LL SIP and LLS, you know that Season 1 is all introduction of the characters and laying the foundation of its world while exploring some stories here and there. Expect to see this again for LLN Season 1. It’s very possible for a Season 2 and for that season to dive deeper regarding the dynamics between all of the characters like in previous franchises.
Wow wow wow. These characters feel really unique than the standard tropes seen in the previous Love Lives. Well… you can see they took similar elements from previous group characters but they did a proper job mish-mashing some of these elements in these new characters than their previous efforts with Aqours making what looked like clones from Muse. It’s honestly refreshing to see there’s a lot more focus on characterization and how they overcome their tribulations.
If I had to compare characterization, it feels like they took the page out of idolmaster in respect to implementing genuinely unique qualities of their character. The depth of character isn’t exactly deeper than more well-crafted characters in anime but for Love Live’s standards, it definitely feels deeper which is a win and something any Love Live fan will enjoy.
Also, I need to address the main character - Yuu. She’s an idol fan self-insert. It’s very clear from the get-go based on how her character plays out. Thankfully, she starts to form a character as the show goes on but she definitely felt like a huge blank slate and that bothered me for a bit considering the characterization of the other characters being quite stronger. This aspect isn’t a huge big deterrent but for those critical, you can definitely notice it quite quickly.
2) Visuals / Animation
Before I start, I need to mention that when I mention bad visual art, Love Live has had a history of it and it generally gets meme’d because it looks funny. Also, some of this is present in the show. However, when I reference bad visual art in this review, some of these aren’t memeable but more of just really bad shots, in my opinion.
Overall, the visuals can look inconsistent between certain episodes. In one episode, it can look downright gorgeous to the point where I think to myself that I’m actually watching a Love Live anime. It can look so good that I think it’s possibly the best Love Live can ever look visually on-screen in comparison to previous entries. In another episode, it looks like a generic episode of Love Live in previous entries or any generic episode of anime in general.
This inconsistency will set high expectations for those who enjoy gorgeous visuals like me. For me, I adjusted my expectations as the show was airing by bringing it down but for those binging, you need to be warned that the visuals can vary depending on the episode. For such a huge inconsistency, I termed the great episodes as developed by the A-Team and the other episodes developed by the B-Team. As you could guess, the A-Team is brought on for critical episodes (the beginning and end) and the B-Team handles the rest.
Do NOT set your visual expectations based on A-Team’s quality, this will hurt your enjoyment through the rest of the run. Once you see B-Team’s quality, set your expectations there and you’ll have a more enjoyable time looking at the visuals.
An important question to be asked is if this visual inconsistency also includes the music video previews (PVs) during the show’s run. I would say that thankfully the music PVs do NOT have that huge inconsistency in respect to the episode’s visual quality. In my opinion, they are high quality for most of them but some of them do fall flat. By that point though, it’s all subjective. Regardless, I think it can be agreed that the music PVs are very well-done in general.
Also, like in Love Live Sunshine, Sunrise was able to bring in their A-game for the CGI department and was able to successfully blend 2D and CGI seamlessly. There have been 0 complaints regarding how the CGI looks, it may look out of place in certain moments but it doesn’t look like a huge eye soar.
I do appreciate the extra effort placed into animating the character’s movements. You can see characters constantly moving in certain episodes and it’s not a constant powerpoint slide. There’s a real feeling of movement and I don’t recall anything looking out of place. Overall, it’s definitely above-average and what you can expect from animation relative to Love Live Sunshine.
3) Audio / Soundtrack / Voice Acting
This is a very subjective section based on a person-by-person’s taste.
I personally found it to be quite serviceable from general anime entertainment. There has been good usage of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds for many scenes. Overall, it was good and I don’t recall anything bad standing out.
I really like the OP, it has a lot of excitement and shows the potential of the group all singing together, this fits the anime opening credits vibe. Also, I enjoyed how the ED was slower-paced as the way to close the anime episode out, this fits the anime ending credits vibe.
There has been a lot of similar usage of soundtracks throughout the show and this was from me watching this show on a weekly basis. I would hope they would use more variety of soundtracks but if the limited selection means it’s quality, I’ll take that. To be honest, it seemed like they focused more on the insert-songs anyways.
The insert-songs are fire and so good that I loop them a lot. They’re all unique and produced by a large variety of composers and arrangers such as TeddyLoid and DECO*27. This creates that very unique feel of each insert-song per character. I believe these insert songs are one of the best that Love Live has to offer in the series entry and I’m really happy to see them not fail in this department in respect to their peers in previous entries.
My favourite insert songs are Butterfly, Vivid World, and Dive.
Some Seiyuus (Voice Actors) have really shined in this show like Rina’s Seiyuu and others put in a serviceable job for their characters which might be in part of the directing and scripting for certain episodes. Regardless, the seiyuus did a good job with what they had.
4) Overall
I’ve spent way too much time writing this review but I can’t help it. There’s a great charm to this series with its memes, music, and performances. It’s why I’ve been able to consume so much of its media at this point. Though it definitely does hurt my critical side of my brain sometimes lol.
For Nijigasaki, I have no regrets watching it while airing. Despite the ups and downs, when it hits its highs, I really feel that. When it hits its lows, I really feel that where I get disappointed and bored lol. Still, as an overall entertainment product, I had fun and would definitely rewatch it in the near future if the opportunity presents itself.
Hopefully, you learned something useful from the review. Thanks for reading. :)
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