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By all accounts, this Love Live! spinoff was a complete surprise for me and I absolutely loved it. First, let me explain my point of view; I’m only interested in Love Live! purely for being a slice of life show and I enjoy it for that. I don’t particularly care about idol music/culture, nor do I care about the mobile game this particular season is based on. I’ve seen a lot of reviews more critical of this saying it was disappointing compared to the mobile game’s story, so while that possibly may be, my perspective is of that pertaining only to viewing this as ... its own thing and I’m judging it only from that view.

Now, as I said before, the mobile game this is based on doesn’t interest me at all, and before this came out I was expecting a half-baked, serviceable show with one dimensional characters that I would have forgotten immediately (keep in mind, this is not a dig at the game if you enjoy it, more so that seems to be the nature of these anime adaptations coming from sources like that). And boy, did watching it turn my thoughts completely around, to the point where Nijigasaki just might be my favorite thing from Love Live! at this point. The series finally has a different presentation to the story, characters actually have depth, underlying conflicts take a more show don’t tell approach, and the general presentation is oozing with passion and creativeness, from the music to the artstyle and environments, etc. It was really refreshing for a series I thought was already treading similar ground with Sunshine (I enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but my enjoyment came mostly from the characters, seeing as the story beats were very similar to SIP, and I thought it got a bit heavy with melodrama). I’m not very good at reviews or writing so I’ll try to give my thoughts on each different aspect as many reviews do:

Story: Stories in slice of life shows are a bit hard to give my thoughts on, because a lot of the time they’re either very simple or not much happens and things aren’t that different in the end, so on an objective scale they might not be ‘amazing’ story-wise, but that’s also by design and part of the appeal of the genre. Anyway, I did enjoy the story of this. To add on to what I said before, it was refreshing to finally have a different overarching plot than saving the school the girls are at from shutting down as the previous shows in the series both had, and in fact while there’s a small bit of focus towards the end on finally making a “School Idol Festival” (seeing as that’s the point of the original game), there’s actually not much overarching plot and I think it actually does the show justice. Instead it focuses on individual characters, with each of their motivations and purposes, and really makes it seem like there’s more care put into everybody, rather than having some fan favorites and the rest are put into the background, which I think does wonders for the type of show to have a main cast that’s this large as is standard in idol anime.
Now that being said, I do think around the middle it goes a bit formulaic, with the episode structure of it mainly consisting of being about a single character, they go through a mini-arc of sorts, and it ends with a solo song by them. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, the characters’ stories themselves are quite enjoyable, but that is a thing to keep in mind. I do appreciate the dialogue in this, and many times in more serious talks you actually see different aspects of characters rather than them only sticking to one niche; it’s a bit hard to specifically describe without directly watching the show, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Finally, with the story being more focused on the characters, this also feels much more carefree and really hones in on that feeling that you’re just watching a slice of the life of a bunch of friends that I enjoy this genre so much for, with not needing some huge overarching problem this time around. It’s fun and lighthearted with a focus on the cast’s friendships, which has always been what Love Live! does great (at least for me).

Score: 8/10, keep in mind this score is relative to slice of life shows only

Art: This is absolutely gorgeous. The heavy use of bright, saturated colors, the detailed environments and sets. Everything about how it looks is so good, and perfectly brings the sense of everything being magical and whimsical. The MVs for the songs have reached a point to where the CGI fits in perfectly with the animation (it has come a long way from SIP’s CG looking more like a game), and are overall super unique and creative with how they go about theming the sets used for songs. Another aspect I greatly enjoyed is the character artstyle redesigns. Characters actually have different faces and looks, with each cast member differing greatly from one another.

Score: 9/10

Sound: First off, to compliment the art is the background and scene music/sounds. It does a great job of giving that calming, whimsical vibe as described before and nicely fills the background where otherwise not much is going on. And obviously, you can’t ignore the idol songs. I was very surprised by how good all of them actually were. I am not an idol pop person (In fact the only Japanese music I listen to is metal with bands like Boris, if that gives you a clue of how opposing my usual tastes are), and every single song that played in this I very much enjoyed. In fact, I ended up getting into a habit of sharing any new song that came up with a friend who hates anime, and he actually really enjoyed them too. While there were a few songs in SIP/Sunshine that I enjoyed, for the most part I just neutrally sat through them anytime one played in an episode, yet here I enjoyed anytime they were on screen, with especially the OP and ED songs being so catchy I didn’t mind sitting through intro/outro as opposed to skipping. The voice acting is also good, nothing mindblowing, but the emotional deliveries were all on point, and I felt the voices for the main cast all had their unique sound to where you could tell each character apart even without visuals.

Score: 9/10

Character: When I first started watching this, and as characters were introduced, I kept thinking to myself that they were going to end up boring and most of them would end up just being for 1 gag (such as the girl who likes sleeping, one being obsessed with being cute, etc) but it never actually gets to that point. Yes, while for the most part the girls do have their own ‘gimmick’, with how they’re presented they usually go beyond just being that, whether it be through dialogue or going through a conflict. Now one thing I do appreciate Nijigasaki for doing differently than the other 2 series is that characters actually break the mold of ‘just’ being a school idol group. In fact, you have one character that is never an idol, and instead acts as the club’s manager, and everybody in this is rather their own solo idol that does their own thing. I’m not saying that was a bad aspect to SIP/Sunshine, rather it was cool seeing something done differently than what is usually done. Overall, as mentioned in the story section, I ended up enjoying every main character in the end, even if there were a few that were my favorites. I felt they each had their strengths and I could definitely see how each one could be somebody’s favorite idol from this. Although I will say, again, they do have their own gimmick that they can fall into when the story’s not focused on them so I don’t think they’re done perfectly, although with idol stuff the whole point is to have a different character for different types of people that may be into them, so it’s a bit hard to fault the series for leaning into that aspect of being a very specific type of character.

Score: 8/10

Enjoyment: Obviously from my wording in all of this review, you can tell I really did enjoy this, and not trying to be objective or unbiased. It’s a refreshing take on a series I already thought was one of the best takes on the slice of life genre, and even doubly so for this season for having zero expectations from me. I definitely recommend this if you’re a fan of the genre, and it’s a no-brainer if you like idols or Love Live! that you’ll probably also enjoy this. Altogether I’d say this is my favorite thing to come out of the franchise so far and I’ll definitely be looking forward to any future show in the series.

Score: 9/10