Love Live! SuperStar!!

When I was first watching love live superstar, I writ a review on how good I thought it was. Since then, it has managed to maintain that quality throughout all 12 episodes and has now became my favorite in the love live franchise and I'm going to now explain why it is worth your time: -New to love live, should I watch the others first?- No, you do not need to watch any other seasons and I actually believe that this is the best place to start if you want to get into the franchise -Art and animation- I've seen many shows and I am quite the fan ofthe 'cute girls doing cute things' genre but it rarely looks this visually appealing. You can really tell that the budget has been thrown into this show, especially with things like the backgrounds that are so detailed that they bring a fresh atmosphere to the typical anime high school setting. Animation is also really smooth and the characters express their feelings and personalities through exaggerated movement very well. -Characters- Compared to the other seasons, the main cast has been cut down to only 5 members. I think this was a great idea since each character gets to have a well developed backstory and motive, instead of some of them being left out. Also, due to the characters all having more screen time, it is a lot more easy to get attached to them since they don't just come across as one dimensional. The designs themselves are also quite unique, look nice and convey the personalities of the characters well. -Soundtrack- With this being an idol anime, the soundtrack is really important and I thought a lot of the songs were good, especially if your a fan of jpop. There's also the additional bonus where if you do like the songs, then more will be released outside of the anime for you to listen to. On top of this, there is some great piano background music which works so well for conveying the emotions of the characters during more sad scenes. -Story- I won't lie and say its the best story you will ever see but it doesn't have to be. Just having the plot of some teenage girls wanting to make it as idols works as a great catalyst for drama and acts as the central character motivation that drives them. The individual character backstories are also realistic and well written. -Comedy- There's not much anime, even labelled a comedy that can make me laugh this much but somehow this one did. A lot of the jokes are ridiculous and catch you out of no where and because you like the characters, it becomes amusing when they say/ do dumb stuff. Sometimes when the pacing is slower, this is what keeps you invested in the episode and brings in some fun scenarios that makes me realize how much I love the absurdity of anime sometimes. -Enjoyment- Enjoyment is definitely the reason why I love this anime so much. It won't change your life but it might make you smile and laugh and I think that's something that's underappreciated when watching media. If you just want to not think, have a good time and watch cute girls then I recommend this and if not then that's okay. -Voice acting- Considering most of these voice actors are completely new they all did a great job. They also continue the brand of live live voice actors with doing interviews and stage performances where they seem like genuinely amusing and nice people. To top that off, they also have nice singing voices as expected. In conclusion, if you are looking for something simple, with nice visuals, characters and you either like or don't mind jpop songs then I recommend you watch this. A lot of people may think this stuff is 'cringe' and I can see what they mean by some moments in older seasons but this one feels very modernized and acts as a great starting point for new fans, a great reintroduction for past fans and a brilliant addition to people who follow the franchise religiously.

The Love Live franchise and the series that it produces has always been a coin flip to whether it's going to end up being mediocre or great. To name names, Sunshine falling short of its predecessor and the School Idol Project's lackluster finale. If you were to ask me what side of the coin did Love Live Superstar land on, I would confidently be able to tell you that it landed on the right side. Superstar is a great entry show to the Love Live franchise. It barely has any connections to the previous installments, making it an easy and clean entry to just turn onand watch. It was a bit of a surprise to me that Superstar took up the: 'school is closing down' cliche so late into the season. What surprised me even more, while continuously watching it week by week, was that it didn't shove this cliche down your throat 24/7. In comparison to School Idol Project and Sunshine, Superstar takes this cliche at a different approach. The cliche still serves its purpose of giving the girls more motivation. But instead of constantly hitting us with this theme like in School Idol Project and Sunshine, Superstar makes the girl's desires, to help one another overcome their own problems, as the make focus and theme of the series. This emphasis on the girls gives them more room for growth as characters, whilst using the 'school is closing down theme' as, just as another motivation when needed. You may argue that's this cliche is the appeal of School Idol Project and Sunshine, but I believe this approach for Superstar was the right choice to make. What School Idol Project and Sunshine lacked in my opinion was the growth for all their characters. Each character likely only got one episode per season focused on solely them. Yes, these episodes with my favorites characters were some of my favorites to watch, but they lacked MAJOR growth as a whole. They likely only solved one problem they were having at that moment. What Superstar did in comparison was that they cut down the cast to 5 members instead of the regular 9, which gave more room for development and growth as individuals and group chemistry as a whole. They kept struggles each character had within them (e.g. Kanon's stage fright, Sumire's inferiority complex, etc). They didn't shallowly cast it aside during the episode it was brought up, rather it waited until the group as a whole was able to help solve it together, making the series flow more naturally and made it feel more realistic. Although one of the negatives I found in Superstar was the weak rival group that was hardly used in the story. What I think School Idol Project and Sunshine did better in comparison to Superstar was that they made full use of their rival groups as another major motivation. Sunny Passion felt shallow, as they were hardly given screen time and felt forcefully used in the story. They aren't another main driving force Liella uses as motivation, unlike each of the character's personal struggles or the school closing down. Sunny Passion is sort of just sitting on the bench waiting to played, but ultimately stays and keeps it warm. Ever since Sunshine, the quality of animation, art and also character designs of Love Live has just gone up and up since then. They still have their trademark exaggerated faces which everyone loves and as an added bonus, derpy faces are used when the characters faces are out of zoom, which I personally loved to death. Superstar also has some really amazing background art to go in tandem with the amazing CGI. Heck, sometimes I couldn't even tell that some of the performances were in CG. Everything about the art just felt really clean, almost even perfect. As expected of Love Live, all of the songs are such a bop. The Ending, 'Mirai wa Kaze no You ni' is probably one of favorite endings in Love Live of all time. The song itself is amazing, but the visuals is what makes this ending so great. No there aren't any hidden themes found within the Ed, it's just the group of Liella having fun and showing some of their daily activities. As a bonus, each of the members of Liella join Kanon one by one as they do the trademark waving, one of my favorite scenes in the Ed. But this simplicity is what makes it so great, fitting to Love Live's main slice of life genre. As also expected of Love Live, all of the voice actors are amazing. They perfectly fitting to the corresponding character they play as and have distinct and beautiful voices. What Love Live always excels at is making amazing and likable characters. Even if you don't like them at first, you somehow always end up loving them in the end. Superstar's characters, don't feel like a re-skin of any of the characters from the previous Love Live, which were a major problem for some people when watching Sunshine. Each of the girls help each other grow as characters. Their struggles don't feel shallow, and as a viewer, it's really satisfying to watch them overcome them because of that fact. The smaller cast and group also helps flesh out each of the characters more, even with the smaller episode count. It really lets the viewer to get to know the girls more and lets them grow onto the girls more and more. Superstar is overall an amazing successor to the Love Live franchise with it's; iconic cast of characters, corresponding with equally amazing voice actors, it's trade mark character designs, and it's amazing songs which makes this series/franchise so appealing in the first place. It's an amazing installment to the Love Live franchise and didn't disappoint in any aspects what so ever. If anything, it well exceeded expectations.

I see a lot of people being nice to this show, and while I kinda see why, I also really don’t. In Japan, Love Live is an insatiable money-making behemoth whose appetite only grows with the eating, but here in the West, it’s largely mocked by the mainstream. But apparently not Superstar. What other people are getting out of this show is something I can’t get out of it, and it might just be because I’ve seen too much. It might just be because I’ve become numb, and maybe if this was the first time I’d ever seen an idol show like this, there’d bestuff I could pick up on which didn’t seem like tired, insipid, clickbait garbage, but I’m too old and storied for that shit. I’m fine with media selling itself, I’m not a child, but when it comes to idols, the girls themselves are the products, and while an anime’s storyline can help dilute this reality, I can’t not see it, so everything just feels fake. Despite being well-directed, the concerts are totally non-diegetic, because they’re being shot from angles no in-universe camera could ever capture. One of the girls is an antagonist to a point, where upon the cast spends two episodes confronting her corny, melodramatic backstory, after which she immediately becomes part of the team even though she’s an outsider who everyone hated five seconds ago. A character travels from a competition in Tokyo to the Southern Islands before the sun can finish setting, waiting for her there is a costume which she never planned to have made, in which she performs flawlessly alongside the others despite not having practiced the set. The show is comprised of contrivance after contrivance after contrivance, thoughtlessly and lifelessly checking off boxes on a bulleted list of Love Live tropes required by the producers. Not every relationship feels this soulless, and not every action feels this manufactured, but to those pretending like this series is significantly more genuine than any other installment of Love Live, I’m afraid I must disagree. After all these years of having watched thousands and thousands of anime, I’ve deduced by far the easiest way to dismiss a series is to scrutinize its production, because most anime look like shit and cut so many corners they become entirely different shapes. Indeed, most generic trash actually LOOKS like generic trash, but this doesn’t. This looks legitimately impressive, and since I couldn’t write it off, I had to endure it, and the technicality behind the concerts was so jaw-dropping, I cannot pretend I didn’t have fun here. The girls have their gimmicks, but their character designs are so much more individualized than previous installments of Love Live, it’s commendable. Love Live girls have always had copy/pasted faces, bodies, hairstyles, and personalities, only adding enough of a difference between them to be legally distinct, but this show breaks the mold in that respect completely. Each girl looks and acts like a separate human being, not like a slight variation of a figurine, body pillow, or cardboard cutout which you already own. They aren’t deep, and some of the forced backstories I mentioned earlier certainly bogged down the script, but the girls are still pleasant and cute. It feels like everyone creatively involved in this project has improved measurably. We all know Yoshiaki Fujisawa is a genius, and while Jukki Hanada still can’t write convincing drama, he still can write funny dialogue and natural chemistry between characters. Love Live has singlehandedly revolutionized the landscape of CG, and Director Kyougoku has absolutely mastered the art of transitioning between the mediums of 2D and 3D. The CG integration is better than some Production IG shows, and the CG itself outclasses Studio Orange. This show is no visual masterpiece, and episodes seven and eight saw heavy inconsistency, but the animators absolutely pampered these girls as much as they possibly could, even if they only exist to fuel Bandai’s merchandising. Thank you for reading.

Superstar is the 4th installment of the beloved and long-running Love Live series. It is easy to follow and does not reference previous parts, allowing both old and new fans to enjoy it. This installment goes back to its roots, arguably simpler than the base of its roots were. Kanon gets picked up by Keke to start a school idol club, but complications arise when the student council president tries to stop them; the standard Love Live stuff. The special part about it this time is how Kanon acts in opposition to the other main characters of previous installments of Love Live. Kanon has stage fright. Thisstage fright helps drive her character throughout the story as an obstacle for her to get over. It is a good character element that can add some growth and depth to her character, but I felt it was rushed. There were not many episodes where it was the main focus and even when it was, I felt it was not explored enough. This pacing issue crosses through Sumire as well. Ever since she was a kid, Sumire has always wanted to be in the spotlight but had never been there. This would also provide for an interesting plot, but once again, underdeveloped. As rushed as I may be describing the pacing, this was only felt during the last third of the show, which is when a lot of the important parts of the characters' arcs happened. Contrary to this was Chisato’s character arc. Chisato was introduced in episode one and slowly developed throughout the show. This is due to her arc directly tying into her relationship with Kanon, and how they affect each other. It climaxed beautifully and became my favourite part of Superstar. And once again, in opposition to Chisato’s arc is Ren’s arc. Ren’s character arc did not make too much sense and was not developed a lot, kind of just happened. Finally, Keke. So far, Keke’s arc has only been hinted at and not a lot has been revealed about her, even if she was the first member to join the group. Frankly, this is not a bad thing, as a later season is likely to go further into her character. So far, I have only spoken about their development, but how are they individually? Honestly, I think I only like Chisato and Kanon individually. Even if I only like two of them individually, the writing is something of note. The characters play off of each other very well. Every character has a different way of speaking to each other, whether friendly (Kanon and Chisato) or a more aggressive tone (Sumire and Keke), creating a very immersive environment and overall makes character interactions an enjoyable experience. The writing also excels at telling jokes. The jokes are very fast-paced and usually succeed to at least put a smile on my face. It combines both visual humour and wordplay, effectively churning out jokes quickly. It is more visual than wordplay but is still a great combination of both. Now onto the more technical aspects, the visuals of each new season of Love Live are always astronomically better; this applies to this season. Hair bounces with each step and the animated dance choreography always looks clean. Full of bright colours blending well together to create appealing visuals that are hard to get bored of. As it usually is with Love Live, the performances where they sing and dance are mostly CGI. Love Live has quite the mixed history with CGI, as sometimes it looks very off, and other times it looks pretty decent. In this case, the CGI looks good. Used solely for the dance segments, studio Sunrise can create higher production choreography and CGI. It does a smooth job transitioning between the CG and the animated parts during the dance segments to help emphasize movement. These stage performances also sound great. Love Live is often associated with cute girls and high-pitched voices, but it is cute girls and “normal” pitch voices this time. This change can make the anime enjoyed by many more people, as many people were turned away by Love Live due to their high pitch. In addition to looking and sounding good, they also flow well. Every time song is broken into, it feels like you know exactly when it is going to happen and instead of being boringly predictable, it is satisfying to see. Alongside the dazzling stage performances, the background music is also good. Nice and relaxing most of the time, but it can also get you a little hype for the more dramatic moments. Despite its characterization and pacing flaws, Love Live Superstar provides a fun time for both new and old fans of the series. It has arguably the best looking and sounding in the series and is overall a worthwhile experience. I will be looking forward to more of it! Final note, I’d like to thank @hnf9982 and @lonelyhearts0 for reading over and helping me edit this review.