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Here it is, another Love Live phone game ad, uh, I mean anime. Jokes aside, this season ponders more for people that already play the phone game (School Idol Festival All Stars) than it does for people that know nothing of this group or franchise because it makes assumptions that you already know the characters beforehand. As a result, it leaves out some important details among other things. Spoilers below.

Story & Presentation

This season sets itself up as a completely separate setting with no relations to any of the previous Love Live generations other than the existence of the idol competition called Love Live. This means ... it doesn’t rely on cameos or references to any of the previous generations to maintain viewer interest which plagues so many sequel series today. So far, so good. And so, it has to do a good job as a stand-alone show which it unfortunately doesn’t do. From a narrative perspective, here’s are the things I’ve noticed.

1. Unlike the previous generations, there’s no overarching plot so far. Thankfully, that means we’re not getting the same recycled plot for the third time. However, this can be a big minus for some people since there’s no sense of direction story-wise. It wasn’t until episode 10 that the group had a goal in mind to work towards which honestly would’ve been a better if introduced near the beginning of the season before everyone’s character ‘arcs’ as it would’ve made each one a bit more meaningful while having a goal in the story to get to.

2. This new group focuses more on individualism rather than collectivism and so each member has their own story to tell as well as their own style of being an idol. A nice idea for sure, but this comes with a big drawback for a season with only 13 episodes with 10 main characters, and that is: no one gets enough time to get fleshed out and develop properly. Additionally, everyone’s personal issues get resolved too damn fast! Take Rina’s episode for example, her lifelong problem of not being able to express herself conflicts greatly with her dream and style of a traditional idol. The Rina-chan board is a simple but effective solution to her problem, but this solution just appeared out of nowhere in one episode without any prior foreshadowing and build-up. Most of the episodes this season essentially followed this pattern: character has some deep problem related to them being an idol, character displays visible sadness, some talk-no-jutsu happens and everything is sunshine and rainbows. No matter how good the solution may be, it’ll feel hollow, rushed, and lack weight if the build-up wasn’t done properly. The phone game does go into more detail with each character, so if any of the main cast catches your attention, that’s where you’d want to look (hence why I called this a phone game ad).

3. Even though everyone has their own issues and end goals as idols, they’re still a club and some of them have relations with each other outside of it. Another issue has to do with how disconnected each of the character ‘arcs’ are to one another. If they couldn’t connect one character with another’s story, they could’ve tied their ambitions to the school idol festival to have some consequence to the plot. Yes, Emma’s episode did concern Karin but it honestly felt more like Karin’s episode but at least they tied together two character’s plights into one ‘arc’. If they only did this for a couple of the other characters, it would've felt less episodic and would've established some meaningful character relationships.

Characters

Just because something’s a little episodic doesn’t mean it can’t be good. That usually means the characters have to do the carrying. Kaguya-sama, for example, blends its brilliant character chemistry with its skits perfectly.

Each Niji club member is a bit more thought-out compared to the previous generations and this season does give each member an even amount of screen time. However, considering all these personalities, they certainly did not utilize this to its potential (probably because this season’s jammed with disconnected character ‘arcs’). The majority of the fun character interactions this season come from Kasumi’s eccentric nature bouncing off of other club members. I personally would’ve liked to see more of the element of the training camp episode where it isn’t just Kasumi creating fun interactions but also every character bouncing whatever character trait off one another; like when Kanata’s cooking skills fixed the product of Setsuna’s lack of cooking skills. A lot of interactions like these are fun only if you know the character beforehand as well.

As for the individual characters, to each their own opinions. I’m just glad there isn’t another Honoka clone. Kasumi’s basically Nico 2.0 but it makes for some entertainment so I’ve got no complaints.

Sound & Visuals

The only reason anyone’s watching this is probably for the music. This season will not disappoint if that’s the case because it delivers a new song almost every episode. If you enjoyed the music from previous seasons, you’ll likely enjoy most songs this season has to offer. The voice acting is good as you’d expect from most anime. Nothing bad from sound effects nor background music either.

This season has changed its art style from the traditional Love Live art style. I’m personally a big fan of this new style as it blends the traditional 2D drawing style with modern animation while still having a Love Live vibe. The animation in episodes is surprisingly smooth. You’ll get some derpy in-between frames if you pause at random times, but overall everything is pleasing to watch. You’ll especially notice the budget kicking in during performances with dynamic camera work and some great visual effects. Speaking of performances, there’s still CG dancing but fortunately, it doesn’t look nearly as bad as it did in previous seasons. Hell, it looks better than most CG in other anime.

Overall

This season is pretty standard for Love Live so existing fans will probably enjoy this as much as the previous seasons. Newcomers to Love Live may find this underwhelming since it doesn’t quite do any of the characters justice and whatever story that happens feels like an afterthought for the writers. If you want singing and dancing, then look no further.