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EP. REVIEW: Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2


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sourpatchthekid



Joined: 20 Dec 2016
Posts: 64
PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2022 8:42 pm Reply with quote
Really enjoying the season so far. As someone who hasn't really played the game I'm curious to see how it goes. Also the OP might be the best in the love live franchise animation and execution wise
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JustMonika



Joined: 17 Jan 2022
Posts: 926
PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2022 11:18 pm Reply with quote
So far this is actually my favorite Love Live series. Definitely buying Season 1 when it releases in July.
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Rouward



Joined: 11 Jan 2016
Posts: 15
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2022 7:07 pm Reply with quote
I've been thinking about this as a long time LLer since 2015. Nijigasaki is the exact Love Live I've been looking for a long time with a modern take on pop cultures without following the same old formula that original series established.

That Episode 2 gave me the biggest acid trip in my whole life because I was so attatched to Emma and Kasumi and I didn't expected them to have a closer relationships here. Not to mention the direction in this one especially from the playground scene to their vocal practice stunned me and hits right in my feelings.
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TaperW



Joined: 14 Nov 2020
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2022 10:41 pm Reply with quote
It's tricky for me to say much in detail about the episodes we've had so far. I picked up the SIFAS game on a whim shortly after its release in non-Japanese regions, and have gotten hooked hard by the franchise in the couple of years since. The first season of the Nijigasaki anime was not just the first series of Love Live I'd watched in full, but the first anime series I'd watched as it came out in years. So I've got a huge attachment to the series and rather too much knowledge of how the game's version of events went.
That said, one of the things that the Nijigasaki anime does right is its attitude towards adaptation. It's not giving you the events of the game, except in the broadest possible terms, but it is giving you the emotional resonances the characters went through.
The other thing it does right is fanservice, though the way I'm using that term might be a bit out of fashion in the wake of the My Dress-Up Darling discourse. But the rapid pace and low weight of references and easter eggs the show throws out is — to my tastes, at least — the best way to do it for a franchise with as much lore from as many sources as Love live does. You don't need to know which SIFAS cards the costume cameos in the MVs are from, or that several shots from the "School Idol Festival 2" promo video are replicating scenes from the comic strips from prior to the game's release; just drop them in as interesting on their own and move on.
Anyway. Two things more. First, from episode one, it was great to see the (brief) triumphant return of the Nagashi Soumen Club, with their multi-story bamboo structure seen behind Mia and Hanpen. And second, in episode four, I actually think it was important that when Ai was fretting in the dressing room before the concert, concerned about getting her feelings across to Misato — it's Rina that hugs her. Rina, who is all about overcoming barriers to communication, and to whom Ai has given the sort of fun that she wants to show Misato.
(Okay, maybe I'm just endlessly soppy about Rina.)
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John the Dark Lord



Joined: 19 Jun 2020
Posts: 231
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2022 12:13 pm Reply with quote
Nicholas Dupree wrote:
Show me some magical girl Love Lives dammit!


Would Mecha Love Live be enough? Because between Aikatsu showing up in Super Robot Wars X-Ω, the LL mobile game holding a crossover event with Code Geass, an official 4koma showing Setsuna reading the novelization of the movie of Gundam 00 (seriously:https://lovelive-as.bushimo.jp/special/nijiyon/chap7/?fbclid=IwAR2RVZFe2gb9B0JlaWMx-7jaCWyZoCKlz7ErKd3jZHNuetpPQAMnIoJetv8) and the general fact that Idolmaster: Xenoglossia is not only a thing, but a thing made by Sunrise, I've been seriously considering that we will one day see those girls piloting giant robots.
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gumbaloom



Joined: 11 Sep 2017
Posts: 252
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2022 6:02 pm Reply with quote
So far I'm not overly enamoured with Season 2.

I've watched the music outtake bits but can't bring myself ot actually watch the episodes from start to finish.

I eneded up buying the blu-rays for cheap when they were on deep discount on Amazon definitely not at point of first release.


OFF TOPIC (partially) - ANN doesn't seem very interested in coverig the fact that Superstar's girls (Liella) are increasing to 9 members. Made a forum topic and sent in a report to newsroom@ but still no sign of any news articles. Thought it would be reasonably newsworthy...
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TaperW



Joined: 14 Nov 2020
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2022 11:58 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, episode five got pretty shippy — I don't think we've seen such fangirling over lesbian stories since Riko was sneaking around with her wall-slam doujinshi. And you could tell that when Shizuku proposed that Ayumu could also play the beast, with the accompanying illustration of her pushing down Setsuna, Yu was having a flashback to her own experience.

But I'm really enjoying how we're growing the intra-core relationships while letting Lanzhu, Shioriko, and Mia percolate. And it's a neat touch that the flowers in the foreground of Yu and Ayumu's ferris wheel ride are the same kind as Ayumu's "unchanging feelings" ones.
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Nate148



Joined: 24 May 2012
Posts: 465
PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2022 6:08 pm Reply with quote
Xenoglossia was made by much of the same team that makes love live now. As for the superstar stuff Bandai has not put out a us press for it yet so I think ANN is waiting for the English info drop. Also, final note ALL the love lives have had 3 subunits made up of 3 members, each with their own image and sound Nijigasaki is the first time that this has happened in the anime however.
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rizuchan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 974
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 10:43 am Reply with quote
I can’t quote very easily on mobile, but yeah, that whole expectation that when Shioriko discovered Setsuna’s identity, it might actually lead to some conflict? Is almost exactly what happened in the original All Stars story. At this point, it’s starting the feel like they’re teasing every opportunity for Shioriko to be her AS self, and then immediately having her be forgiving and helpful instead. I don’t like it. I understand that the anime is supposed to be a lot more chill, and AS went way overboard on the drama for Season 2 and no one liked it, but I’m not enjoying the defanged Shioriko we got as a result.

That all said, that’s basically my only complaint about this season. I just loved AS Shioriko so much, I really hope they do something to make her character a little more interesting, because we have no shortage of sweet, overly helpful girls in the LL universe.
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John the Dark Lord



Joined: 19 Jun 2020
Posts: 231
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 11:44 am Reply with quote
I think this is one of those cases where the writers try to answer the complaints of the fans, but go too far in the opposite direction and end up removing the good things from the work too.

Sure, people didn't like how much drama there was in the mobile game, but by making Shioriko so friendly they are pretty much robbing her of her reason to be in the story. So she has always wanted to be an idol, but doesn't think she can do it, huh? Pretty sure we already covered this plotline last season.
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Nate148



Joined: 24 May 2012
Posts: 465
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 12:23 pm Reply with quote
Yea that is kind of the thing lanzu gets hit by this too but might be that they are saving some of the harder stuff for the back half.
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TaperW



Joined: 14 Nov 2020
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 3:14 pm Reply with quote
I don't know. I loved the episode, but then I also loved the story in the game, and I'm apparently an outlier there too. Without going too deep into game spoilers, though, I do have to say that Setsuna coming out of the (school idol) closet publicly is something that never happened there, and something I never foresaw happening here.

Shioriko's reaction to discovering Setsuna/Nana's secret identity is, I think, what gave Setsuna the courage to do it; it feels like a callback to her tearful, "It's okay for me to be selfish?" to Yu when she was coaxed out of retirement in season one — and Ayumu's "We have to see this through" fistbump replicates Setsuna's from episode 12.

Maybe I'm just not expecting the same drama points as everyone else.
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Nate148



Joined: 24 May 2012
Posts: 465
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 8:22 pm Reply with quote
Or want another take seeing how the game went
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TaperW



Joined: 14 Nov 2020
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sun May 08, 2022 9:00 pm Reply with quote
Nate148 wrote:
Or want another take seeing how the game went


That may be it, though I did really enjoy the SIFAS story as well. I'm no stranger to this sort of setup, where multiple alternate versions of the adventures of a set of characters are all canon — heck, I'm old enough that one of my early anime obsessions was Tenchi Muyo, back when its first TV series was coming out and differing wildly from the OVAs (and then the second TV series did that again), and even just in Love Live, the μ's story has some big variations depending on what media you follow.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2022 4:13 pm Reply with quote
Really waiting for shioriko to get some personality in the anime, so I hope next ep does something... She's really just been... there. and that's it.

I didn't mind this episode and the song being just ok doesn't surprise me because AZUNA are the weakest unit imo (but I like their amusement park shtick). (also I haven't found any of the solo songs particularly interesting except for solitude rain)

i was so happy to see more of the N characters in the anime. Really hoping we get more school cameos but Shion has one of my fave N girls so hopefully I'll get to see her cameo.
I really like that they're giving the N girls the oppurtunities to do stuff and GET VOICED!

(please show seiran high school)
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