Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Love Live! Superstar!! Season 2
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2444 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Ep 4 review: looks like there’s an unclosed italics after “ she most definitely knows about µ's”, which makes the whole last third of the article italicized.
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harminia
 Posts: 2000 Location: australia |
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"Have you guys heard of oNiFTs?" This was such a cute episode and Mei and Shiki's relationship was sweet. I liked Shiki attending club practice just to force Mei to act. It handled it just differently enough to how past seasons did (like Hanamaru and Ruby joining) that it was fresh. Also they are so gay. |
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zrdb
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This series comes the closest to capturing the vibes of the original show for me.
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coreymon77
Posts: 21 |
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So Nuts is likely to be rather polarizing here, at least for now. She’s clearly a little shit, but that is entirely intentional, modelling her after every youtuber or twitch streamer these days. That said, they’re clearly not done with her. As Kanon mentioned, there’s probably something going on, something that explains her behaviour, her obsession with money, and that they should wait to try and find out what that is before going after her or judging her too harshly. The thing is, Kanon actually has a reason for thinking that, and it relates to another interesting point of this episode, and that is that Sumire is the one who saw right through Nuts’ schtick and was the first to call her out.
The fact that it is Sumire is actually a huge showcase of her character development. See, people might have forgotten, but it wasn’t very long ago that Sumire was trying to do the exact same thing as Nuts here. But one year prior, she would have been all on board with this money scheme. Hell, she was attempting to orchestrate her own scheme to use Kanon and Keke’s burgeoning idol group as her big ticket to stardom, complete with freaking out over follower counts. Sumire knows Nuts because, up until recently, she was her. I imagine there isn’t anyone in that group who understands her quite as well as Sumire, especially once we learn more about her and why she’s so money grubbing. It’s quite the point for her character to now be the one who is protective of the group and skeptical of such schemes. It’s wonderful to see how far she has grown. But that’s also why Kanon is so quick to think “well there has to be a reason for this”, because it has happened before: with Sumire. It would have been easy to write Sumire off at the start too. But Kanon did some digging and, after some shenanigans, got Sumire to open up to her. If that was the case before, why not now, too? Kanon is trusting and wants to see the best in everyone, it’s part of what makes her such a great leader and helps her in the team therapist role she also assumes, but she’s also just going by prior experience. That said, Nuts’ schemes, while she might not have particularly altruistic motives for them, aren’t actually that bad or that wrong. Sure, she’s just doing it for money and trying to up her own popularity, but Liella could actually use someone who is more adept at promotional activities. As we have seen, this group isn’t exactly the greatest at that. Between camera-shy Kanon, Ren’s complete obliviousness with technology and the other personalities, having someone take care of such activities could be good for them. It’s why they are, for the most part, so willing to go along with Nuts’ proposition, at least at first. Sure, it would be best to have someone who has better intentions do it, but that will come. In addition, her later plan, about having the first years split off and train on their own. Sure, she might have some weird, conniving intentions behind that for now, probably trying to split the group and play up the tensions for some juicy drama (although the preview implies that those might not quite go according to plan for her), but it’s actually quite a good idea. The first year members are still having some pretty major inferiority issues, which is to be expected given how good the original five are. Of course, the second years all try to downplay this, saying that is why they are their seniors and mentors and such things will come in time, as they should. But as hard as they try, there will still be that constant demonstration, that constant reminder of the first years’ inferiority, perceived or otherwise, so long as they always practice together, at least until they catch up a bit, and such a thing can get quite discouraging after a while. Having them get away from that and be able to focus on improving themselves without that constant distraction, that constant display of how far behind they are, where they aren’t constantly comparing themselves will probably do them a world of good both in improving their actual skill levels as well as just improving their confidence. It’s why Chisato was so quick to approve of it once they explained the idea, because she understood why they need it, having dealt with her own inferiority and reliance issues in previous arcs (really nice piece of writing there too). I have to wonder how much of this applies to the 2nd gen seiyuu as well. 1st Gen Liella are all insanely talented and they've only gotten better as time has gone on and they have had more and more opportunities to perform. While I'm sure they are all nothing but kind, welcoming and supportive, like their characters have been, I can only imagine the pressure being felt by new girls to measure up, especially after reading some of the things in Nonchan's (Kinako's) recent interview. A lot of this story could very well match both the animated and real worlds. So yeah, good things to come next week. Going by the preview, I imagine things aren’t quite going to go according to plan for Nuts, and it looks like we’re getting a classic Kanon conversation as well, so probably some character revelations there. It should be fun. |
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harminia
Posts: 2000 Location: australia |
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Not sure how I feel about Natsumi. I remember when Sumire was first announced, she was teased as being very similar, with being a LTuber person focused on getting popularity, so I am glad that concept ended up transferring to Natsumi.
But I also found her a little annoying. Something about her voice was a bit too much and I got sick of her yelling MONEY! I do like how evil she is though. I'm sure she has some sad story behind why she wants money, but the fact she says stuff like "you're bigger pushovers than I thought" takes her to a new level that not even Nico made it to. The scenes of Kanon and then Natsumi running away were so funny. I especially loved the sounds Natsumi made. And her expressions are fabulous. I also like that we have someone who is semi more realistic in that they're kinda more neutral and grounded regarding idols and thus can comment stuff like "what is with you people?" instead of just believing in friendship and dreams (Sumire was similar I think). The bit where Kanon and Sumire had to play cards standing outside was hilarious, especially with Keke lording over them. Also, congratulations Ren on discovering the glories of video games. Also also the mention of how 9 is the magic idol number that grants miracles LMAO. I'm interested in seeing where this goes and how they develop Natsumi. I feel she's very relatable in some ways but also a bit too much in others. I always go for the gremlin characters in LL but I think I'll stick with semigremlin Sumire this time round. I agree with @coreymon77 that it was really nice to see Sumire protecting the group and identifying someone who was doing pretty much the same thing as what she had done in the past. I hope they get to have a relationship because it'd be fun to see them bounce off each other. After hearing the new members solo versions of the ED i think i'm largely pretty happy with everyone's singing. I mean, I'd have to hear more to know for sure and I'm still on the fence about Kinako but at least we have a group where everyone can sing (sorry certain characters/VAs from past groups...............) I wonder what the deal with Wien is. They kinda just forgot about her. Maybe she is too young to take part in Love Live and will be a rival in the inevitable movie, but it feels kinda weird that we got this rival character who was so cool, then promptly chucked away and now they're still talking about how amazing sunny passion are (which...they aren't...sorry). Just sort of makes the whole drama seem like nothing. I get they gotta introduce the new characters and get them on board but they haven't mentioned her at all. I feel like they could at least mention her, have a few seconds of sombre silence at her power and then move on. Also why is Shiki suddenly randomly speaking in English? I assume to make her more quirky but I keep thinking I'm watching Niji with Mia's random English remarks (which at least made more sense). this ep was a very "I have tl;dr opinions and must voice them" huh |
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coreymon77
Posts: 21 |
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Great! Mission accomplished! That, I believe, was entirely the intention. Isn't she just like every obnoxious youtube or twitch personality ever? I'm sure she'll get better.
They didn't just forget about her, she's just not really relevant right now, as the focus has gone back to recruiting and interpersonal stuff. I imagine that she might come back up when the focus switches to the competition again, but I don't think she will actually be too much of of a direct factor. While it hasn't been explicitly stated, as far as I can recall, but it has been heavily implied throughout the entire franchise several times that Love Live is a high school competition and, as such, I don't think a middle schooler such as Wien will be able to compete. What I think they are doing instead is setting her up for later. Not for an inevitable movie, but for a 3rd season as I do actually think this series will be the one that breaks that barrier, assuming Nijigasaki doesn't do it first. They have simply set up too many plot lines and elements and other stuff to carry over to next year for me to not think that is the plan. I believe they are setting Wien up as next season's rival, once Sunny Passion has graduated and is out of the picture, and they are somewhat introducing her now so that it's not "new character out of nowhere".
I actually post write-ups like this for each episode on the Love Live subreddit, along with other random thoughts and snark that comes to mind while watching. I just decided to post the main write-up here this week too. I might continue. |
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harminia
Posts: 2000 Location: australia |
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Well, that insert song sure was something.
Oninattsu's back story felt a bit weak to me. Like, I get it and it makes enough sense but I was expecting something else, like she was poor or had to support a family member or something (which I guess are generic twists, but the actual twist wasn't that much less generic). her video thumbnails were spot on though. |
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coreymon77
Posts: 21 |
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Well, I was right about Nuts’ plans not, well, going according to plan. Her idea of driving a wedge between the two groups fell by the wayside pretty fast when it was abundantly clear that the 1st years were having none of it. In addition, as much as she thought she could, she quickly found herself unable to really do that to them. But I’ll get to that.
Let’s talk about her motivations and backstory a bit. So Nuts here was a bright-eyed ambitious girl who was constantly getting her aspirations shot down by the cruel hand of reality and gave up dreaming entirely at a young age. Remember her comments about “if you’re not suited to it, it will never happen?”. Well, view was brought about by her constant failures to become something, anything special or unique. It seems like her money fascination came about because she eventually saw herself as not suited to anything and figured might as well just try and make a lot of money. Hopefully then, the influence that brings will allow her to achieve something. Pretty relatable backstory, tbh. I think part of her issues here is that she kept on setting to lofty of a goal for herself and then giving up at the first sign of a setback, which brings us into how she ended up joining the group. Nuts has this thing about dreams, as a result of hers constantly being dashed over the course of her life and subsequently giving up on the idea. It was only when she encountered Liella, and particularly the new first years, that she got a glimpse of people working to achieve something, despite setbacks. It awoke something in her, she even says it during the episode that she came to the realization that their dream was actually achievable, and that was the catalyst that opened her up to joining. Which brings me to something else, Kanon. There’s a lot of talk about how she was the one to recruit and how she did everything, again, and well, not quite. Kanon might be the one who provided the final push, but, as has been the case in the past, most of the work was done already by others. By the time Kanon came around and spoke to Nuts, the work was already mostly done, largely by Kinako, but by the other members as well. It was her hanging around them, watching their passion and dedication to improving themselves, including in the previous episode, that really did the job convincing her. It was Kinako talking about her dreams, about their dreams that planted those seeds in her mind. She was already pretty much ready once Kanon showed up and only really needed that one final push, which is where Kanon shines. Had she come any earlier, it wouldn’t have worked, because she wasn’t ready yet. Even still, who is it who pulls her over into the circle right before the performance? Kinako and the other first years. Remember it is only after that first performance that she proclaims it to be her new dream, and that’s only after several weeks of working and training with the first years. But still, why Kanon to give that last push? Let’s talk about that a bit. Put simply, because that’s what she does. That is the job of the leader, to be that supportive push when it is needed. Kanon’s skill as a leader, and why she is so good at it, is to know when that last push will be effective. It’s been established several times, even outright stated in the What A Wonderful Dream MV, how Kanon is the force that brings Liella together as a whole. That does not mean she is invincible or all powerful or all capable. She is very much reliant on the others and would be a mess without them. We saw it in this very episode. She gets herself all worked up in gloom over worry about the first years and it takes Chi to pull her out of it. She would be a mess without everyone. But they would be a mess without her too. Kanon wasn’t even really out there to recruit. They had established already how worried she was about the first years, so, having another reason to be in the area, of course she’s going to go check up on them. Then, after overhearing the conversation with Kinako, did what she does best, reaching out to someone in need. Kinako wasn’t going to be the one to make that push. That’s not who she is, you could tell given how she backed down when being brushed off. She and the rest of the 1st years also still had too much of their own insecurities to deal with to be concerned with to be recruiting. It just fits who Kanon is and her role in the group. Was the thing with her dad convenient? Yeah, but this franchise runs on conveniences and it’s not like Kanon wouldn’t have found some other reason to go check up on them, what with her worry. All in all, I’m totally fine with it. It fits with everyone’s roles. Plus, how can you complain about something that gave us Bear Kanon? Way too cute. Anyways, we now have our full group and it’s full steam ahead. I’m super excited to see where things go from here. A couple of additional fun facts: - In true Love Live fashion, they got another voice legend for a bit part. This time, it's having Kinako's mom voiced by Ikue Otani, better known to most as Pikachu. - That field with the multicoloured flowers, that wasn't just Kanon using her Orange Protagonist powers. It's actually a real place called Shikisai no Oka. |
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harminia
Posts: 2000 Location: australia |
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Ah, so that's who it was! I knew it'd have to be some legend but I couldn't recognise the voice, as I've hardly seen Otani in anything (and what I have is like, Pokemon, Corpse Party and One Piece LOL). Also, nice one with Shikisai no Oka. It's cool seeing it's real and not just Love Live magic (tho I think there was a little of that too of course!) |
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merr
Posts: 467 |
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I was surprised they didn’t go with the Natsumi is poor angle, but I think it worked in the end. Her willingness to hustle so hard in the absence of a real goal is proof she has the drive to succeed, even though she thinks she’s talentless. She just needed somewhere to channel that drive, and someone to believe in her, which is what Liella offered in the end.
It would have been nice if Sumire had been the one to help her out, since the parallels between their motivations (and personalities) are pretty clear. The big difference is that Sumire dug in her heals after failing, whereas Natsu decided she had to change her goal until she just stopped having one. I think they’re trying to avoid pairing off the first and second years too much. Maybe that will happen later in the season. |
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coreymon77
Posts: 21 |
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Nuts is actually probably the biggest dreamer of the entire group, always having these big lofty goals. The issue is, the biggest dreamer can just as easily become the biggest cynic in the right scenarios. They tend to go from one extreme to the other, and that's exactly what happened with Nuts here. She kept on getting hit by reality so much that eventually her dreaming turned into cynicism. All she really needed was to believe that a new dream wouldn't just result in yet another failure and disappointment to spark that drive within her once more.
I don't think Sumire really would have been in the right position to do so. She was still too suspicious of Nuts' motives and plans to really be interested in reaching out to her. You are correct in how similar they are, though, and I imagine that will come up later. After all, I don't expect Nuts' eccentricities to simply disappear all at once. We will have plenty of time for those two personalities to butt up against each other. Also, did anyone else get major Team Rocket vibes from that one imagine spot with the evil 1st years? It was legitimately the first thing that came to mind when that scene happened. Mei and Shiki's hair colours even match. I suppose that would make Kinako Meowth. "Tsu, that's right!" They even have Pikachu in this same episode!! It all fits! |
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harminia
Posts: 2000 Location: australia |
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I hadn't got around to listening to the new songs so thanks for mentioning this.... Yuragu wa is bloody amazing. I wish they went this hard on songs that are in the anime (Non Fiction is still the best song from the anime imo).
Looks like next ep is a Ren focused ep which'll be fun! |
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coreymon77
Posts: 21 |
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This was a wonderful episode, truly superb. There isn’t really a whole lot for me to go into as far as deep analysis goes, but that doesn’t make this any lesser of an episode. In fact, it’s episodes like this where this franchise really fires on all cylinders. It has been such a long time since we’ve gotten one of these utterly goofy, slice of life episodes where the characters all just get a chance to bounce off each other as they deal with some silly scenario or another and it’s such a pleasure. Like the “Dia-chan” episode in Sunshine, this has a genuine, if somewhat silly, character hook behind it all, but it’s really just a chance for everyone to be themselves, along with wonderful little pieces of character development for all involved.
Gamer Ren is hilarious and this issue plays into her main one of feeling like she has to tackle all of her problems on her own. “This is my burden, and I must face it alone. No one must know.” sort of deal. She’s done it before and, despite it being over a rather funny reason this time, it’s nice to see that side of her, as well as her learning to share her burdens with the others. Many of the others get pieces too. Mei opening up to the others more, Shiki just being Shiki, Nuts showing us that her schtick isn’t going anywhere just because she joined, it’s all there. Chisato is growing beautifully into her role of club president and Kanon becoming Vice President is a wonderful piece of growth for her, given how much she has resisted taking on leadership roles like that in the past, She’s continuing to grow into the person she was meant to be. Also, gotta love how Ren managed to get her hands on full-sized arcade cabinets, a CD-i, a 3DO, an Apple Pippin and a freaking Nintendo PlayStation prototype and yet she still doesn't have a PS5. Really, just a wonderful, wonderful time all around this episode. It had me laughing and smiling from start to finish. I would go as far as to say this is easily one of the funniest episodes we’ve ever gotten from Love Live. Looks like we have an unexpected break next week, so see you in two weeks for more! |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 975 Location: Kansas |
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So... true to life, right? 
Very excited for a Ren episode and it didn't disappoint. I love the Student Council President architype, and "sheltered, prim and proper girl discovers average person hobby/food/etc and realizes it's amazing" is like my favorite trope. Regarding the outright saying "love" - I meant to talk about it back in the Mei/Shiki episode but didn't get the chance, but I agree that Superstar might actually be moving a level up past yuri-baiting and into obvious-but-not-outright-stated lesbians territory. I'm really not into the Love Live shipping scene, but Mei and Shiki's episode was like, Liz and the Blue Bird level subtlety. ...On the other hand, I felt almost that way in the first season of Sunshine with Chika and Riko, and then they went and spent the second season teasing Riko and Yoshiko instead.  So we'll see how it goes, yuri-baiting (probably) gonna bait.
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John the Dark Lord
Posts: 232 |
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Yes, even if indirectly, I think this is the first time a Love Live anime has acknowledged that lesbians are a thing.
That aside, for a series that is supposed to be all zany and corny, Ren's struggle this episode was painfully relatable. |
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