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


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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 3:48 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
and Kasumin is already an easy frontrunner for my Best Girl of the series – no surprise since I still preach the good news about Nico Yazawa in TYOUL 2020.

Ah yes, I see you have good taste when it comes to Best Girls. Very good, very good.


I've been really enjoying Niji. It doesn't have the same bizarre, sitcom-esque humor as the previous series had, but it's still been a lot of fun. Plus, the animation is briliant. Not just in the CG (which is a massive improvement and integrates almost seamlessly), but the overall animation too. The character acting is so fun, with subtle things in the background (like Ayumu's looks of, perhaps jealous, bewilderment when Yu praises Kasumin), as well as over the top, fun animation (Kasumin, usually).

It's a lot of fun and it's also really refreshing in how it's not only shaken up the Love Live formula (The school is fine? A protagonist who doesn't care about going to Love Live?!), but also shaken up the whole "the club is closing! Quick, find members!" thing. The fact that SetsuNana wasn't adverse to the club existing was nice. She just didn't want it to be the same club that had traces of herself in it.

Next ep is Ai ep! I hope the translators can squeeze some great puns in there. (I did like Ai saying "I call B.S. but I accept this B.S." about the cat)
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John the Dark Lord



Joined: 19 Jun 2020
Posts: 231
PostPosted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:16 pm Reply with quote
Wait, if Setsuna was okay with the club continuing without her, why did she try to disband it? I mean, when she showed up in the first episode she was all, "there is no School Idol Club in this school anymore", and everyone else was acting like it was a permanent thing too, depressing feels and all. Then in the latest episode she just says "you can continue the club I you want, but I won't be a part of it anymore". Well lady, maybe you should have told the girls this before trying to disband it! I mean, she even gave the clubroom to another club.
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MasterGhost



Joined: 29 Nov 2011
Posts: 125
PostPosted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:43 pm Reply with quote
Probably my frontrunner for AoTS so far. With a new director and new series composer (the same writer as Yuru Camp and the Star Twinkle Precure movie, my AoTY for 2019) in charge, Nijigasaki proves that Love Live can tell a story on its own without falling back to excessive melodrama, something which I was very critical of the last four seasons. The jokes are funny, the individual character arcs are original, and the creative choice of having multiple blink-and-miss moments and/or easter eggs happening in the background at once (which reminds me a lot of Saiki Kusuo and Machikado Mazoku) bring the series to a new direction, and I am excited to see how it turns out.
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5459
PostPosted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:50 pm Reply with quote
One thing that struck me about the 1st episode of Love Live Nijigasaki is how Setsuna's CHASE concert got Yuu so enamored she pretty much interacted with Setsuna's performance. It kind of reminded me something out of Macross. I really hope there will be more of those kinds of performances where Yuu as well as the rest of the audiences become immersed in them as well.
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TsukasaElkKite



Joined: 22 Nov 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:54 pm Reply with quote
Setsuna is my Best Girl!
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 2:21 am Reply with quote
harminia wrote:
Quote:
and Kasumin is already an easy frontrunner for my Best Girl of the series – no surprise since I still preach the good news about Nico Yazawa in TYOUL 2020.

Ah yes, I see you have good taste when it comes to Best Girls. Very good, very good.


To be honest, NicioNico had less competition than Kasumin, who already has fierce competition with "I'm going to break all the rules while I make them" Setsuna/Nana and "Will she/won't she/is she/what's with the highlights?" Yu.

Already in this series, I've gone from Yu to Kasumin to Setsuna and Yu in the same episode.... and Yu hasn't even had her focus episode yet or even joined the group/club or expressed any desire to. Yu's is just there, always there, for support. With ideas... and suddenly she's fangirling over Setsuna so hard her rooftop call out doubles as a love confession.

It is kind of goofy to start out with an already successful solo member... who also quit already... but I am loving the energy of the show so far. Not just a return to form from the disappointing Sunshine but an entirely different dynamic altogether.

Look, I don't know if Sunshine got better or not, but I tried watching it both before and after enjoying the first version but even before knowing anything about fanchise, I could tell how derivative Sunshine was.... whose stated goal was to be Just Like the group from the first series.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
Location: australia
PostPosted: Tue Oct 20, 2020 3:56 am Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
Look, I don't know if Sunshine got better or not, but I tried watching it both before and after enjoying the first version but even before knowing anything about fanchise, I could tell how derivative Sunshine was.... whose stated goal was to be Just Like the group from the first series.


For me, I think it managed to differentiate itself from the original series partway through season 1. Both the series and the characters themselves sort of stop trying to be µ's, and be their own thing. I also feel it was a bit more grounded and had more drama to it than original Love Live.
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Shayru



Joined: 21 Jul 2020
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:59 pm Reply with quote
harminia wrote:
Animegomaniac wrote:
Look, I don't know if Sunshine got better or not, but I tried watching it both before and after enjoying the first version but even before knowing anything about fanchise, I could tell how derivative Sunshine was.... whose stated goal was to be Just Like the group from the first series.


For me, I think it managed to differentiate itself from the original series partway through season 1. Both the series and the characters themselves sort of stop trying to be µ's, and be their own thing. I also feel it was a bit more grounded and had more drama to it than original Love Live.



I don't remember when it was, but there was a big moment because of them trying to be too much like µ's and not themselves, and find what's their own point as a group,

kinda like nijigasaki has this, but with each being their own instead of trying too much to be a group;

nijigasaki do takes some things from older love live, but the fact that it's less cartoony in it's execution is a good thing, the old formula may come back with superstar though as niji is more of a spin-off that wasn't planned to have an anime at first but I even if I enjoy niji, I can't wait for superstar because it only has 5 members for now and it'd be a nice change if they keep it that way.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:11 pm Reply with quote
Shayru wrote:
I don't remember when it was, but there was a big moment because of them trying to be too much like µ's and not themselves, and find what's their own point as a group,

kinda like nijigasaki has this, but with each being their own instead of trying too much to be a group;

nijigasaki do takes some things from older love live, but the fact that it's less cartoony in it's execution is a good thing, the old formula may come back with superstar though as niji is more of a spin-off that wasn't planned to have an anime at first but I even if I enjoy niji, I can't wait for superstar because it only has 5 members for now and it'd be a nice change if they keep it that way.


Yeah, I don't remember either, but it's when Chika takes down her µ's poster. You see the space where it used to be and realise they're not trying to be µ's anymore, but instead be their own group. It was good!

I'm interested to see what Stars is like too.. Seeing as it's meant to be the official sequel series.


Anyway, latest ep was fun! Ai is such a good girl, and I'm enjoying seeing Rina without her board, so you can actually see WHY she'll end up using it later. I didn't really get much sense of it from the game (tho I didn't read side stories) so it's good seeing it.
I loved the puns at the end and Yu cracking up over them. Props to the translators for working in puns that work, and also have some relation to the original Japanese lines.

Looking forward to Emma's episode! I hope she has a good Alps costume and the song has lots of green hills and stuff.
I really want her to yodel.
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Shayru



Joined: 21 Jul 2020
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:22 pm Reply with quote
harminia wrote:


I'm interested to see what Stars is like too.. Seeing as it's meant to be the official sequel series.

Anyway, latest ep was fun! Ai is such a good girl, and I'm enjoying seeing Rina without her board, so you can actually see WHY she'll end up using it later. I didn't really get much sense of it from the game (tho I didn't read side stories) so it's good seeing it.
I really want her to yodel.


With love live, I'm wondering what they'll do to make it a "true" sequel, aquours had that with the inspiration but I don't see them do it again later to not overlap, niji probably isn't a "main" series since they arent trying hard for love live.

Can't agree more on Rina, I played at the launch of the game and finished all the story available at the time but haven't really played since.
This is a nice way of preparing the board, and a nice surprise since it took quite some time before seeing her face in the game.
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5459
PostPosted: Mon Oct 26, 2020 4:50 pm Reply with quote
I almost fell into an easy trap that, "hey, Ai's story didn't have crazy melodrama so it must be boring!" But after pondering for a moment, her problem of trying to define herself definitely fell a lot more relatable which I like. It is rather fascinating and nice change of pace of the Love Live franchise for this anime to focus on bettering their individual selves. I wonder if this is going to be the theme of this season.
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blahmoomoo



Joined: 27 Jan 2020
Posts: 457
PostPosted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 11:14 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
or at the very least an explanation for how Rina's face-plate works. Seriously, how does she see in that thing?


I saw a Twitter user create one for themselves. You can get a grid of LEDs with gaps between them. Since the LEDs only produce light in one direction, you can readily see through the gaps.

https://twitter.com/blockwonkel/status/1296601753316622338
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5459
PostPosted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:48 pm Reply with quote
Ohhhh, Nick! You HAD to slip in a Macross Delta reference, huh?! Laughing

But seriously, this week's episode had a smart payoff that led to Rina using the digital emoticon mask. I was actually worried how the anime would handle Rina's gimmick and thought it would start out having her use that mask as a crutch which would then lead to her removing it. But nope, they completely inverted the order and made it work. I liked it.
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TaperW



Joined: 14 Nov 2020
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Sat Nov 14, 2020 11:56 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Until this shot right here revealed that Setsuna's “Dive!!” performance was real and even caught on tape – apparently there are rogue camera drone operators at Nijigasaki who forwarded all their footage to Rina afterwards.


I think the implication there was that there are, indeed, rogue drone operators who sent Rina their footage -- or possibly that this high school inexplicably operating out of Tokyo Big Site has a lot of oddly placed hi-def security cameras -- but that Rina put the CGI in herself.

(I'm also looking forward to seeing the review of Kanata's episode -- I've been playing the game, so I knew it going in, but the reveal that spoiler[Kanata is not a ha-ha lazy comedy character, but is a pathologically overworked and overprotective big sister who's just surviving on catnaps,] I've kind of been waiting for.)

spoiler[To put it in Love Live terms, it turns out that Kanata isn't a Honoka, but a Nico, of all things. I think that brings us to a total of three Nicos in the group?]
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FireChick
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Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2385
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 7:28 pm Reply with quote
After watching up to episode 7 of this, I have now decided: Rina is my best girl, with Kanata being a SOLID number two.
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