Love Live! School Idol Project Season 2 Review
Honoka Kousaka and the members of µ’s have successfully saved their school, Otonokizaka High! The girls try to go back to their normal school lives but their peace doesn’t last long when a second Love Live! is announced. Given a chance at redemption, all the members of µ’s must pull together, give it their all and sing their hearts out to claim their victory. However, with the graduation of the third years drawing close, the future of µ’s grows increasingly uncertain, a fact that weighs heavy on the hearts and minds of all the girls.
Love Live! School Idol Project is a franchise that continues to take the world by storm, and after watching the first season of the anime, it wasn’t hard to see why. The first season was not without its issues though, however minor they may be. So, with that, I am overjoyed to report that the second season improves on the the first in almost every way and is a spectacular experience that I won’t be forgetting any time soon.
As much as I loved the first season of Love Live, I did have one criticism and that was the story. It wasn’t completely lacking, there was an attempt to have a plot, but it was very underwhelming. At best, the story of the school’s closure felt like a reason to get all the members of µ’s together, rather than a story you actually cared about, and often disappeared into the background. This was highlighted by the fact that the announcement the school was saved didn’t even feel like a big deal. Granted, this was very understandable; after all, it had to introduce and establish nine different characters and their relationships. Since the first season got all the character introductions out the way, the story in Love Live! Season 2 is given the spotlight and easily outdoes its predecessor, having a plot that is almost as great as the already fantastic characters.
This time, the story is centered on the Love Live! event, a school idol competition, and the show remains focused on this throughout. Not that the show doesn’t spend time on other things, but the story is very much at the forefront here, with every episode at least being partly dedicated to moving the plot forward in some way. However, what really makes it truly special is just how emotional it can get. The first season did attempt to be emotional at times, and granted it worked quite well, but Season 2 is on a completely different level. I found there were multiple episodes where I was fighting back the tears, with the biggest tearjerker being a particular episode set on a beach. I won’t spoil anything, but needless to say, if that gut punch of an episode doesn’t make you at least well up, I’m not sure what will! I think a show making me feel so emotional is quite a rarity; I could name all the shows that have done on one hand, so that speaks volumes about just how effective both the story and characters of Love Live are.
Despite the fact the story has been put front and center this time around, that doesn’t mean that the characters have suffered because of it. The characters were definitely the best thing about the first season and they are equally excellent here. A small complaint about the first season was that, due to the short length of the show, not all of the characters really got a time to shine, and this is an issue that the writers took no time to fix here. Almost all of the characters that I felt got lost in the shuffle last time get their moment to shine here, including some fantastic episodes focused on Nico and Nozomi. However, the best character-focused episode, and one of the best episodes from both seasons, is the Rin-centred Episode 5. Of all the characters from the first season, Rin was the one I felt got short-changed the most, so having an episode all about her was wonderful, and it naturally follows on from a small scene from Season 1 and greatly expands upon it. The chemistry between the colourful cast of characters is back here in full force and ultimately remains the most powerful draw of the series as it creates some wonderful comedic moments and is generally a ton of fun, making Love Live an absolute joy to watch.
As with their re-release of Love Live! Season 1, Love Live! Season 2 contains both the English and Japanese audio tracks and both casts do an absolutely superb job once more. All of the English and Japanese voice actors return from the first season and it’s honestly hard to pick standouts from either cast as they all do so well. Despite how good the voice acting was before, it is topped here by an emotional couple of episodes towards the end which sees all the voice actors on the absolute top of their games. Of course, it goes without saying that the music is also just as fantastic as in the first season. Again, I think that the amount of enjoyment you’ll get out of Love Live! will likely depend on how much you do like the music, but, if you do like J-Pop, you’ll find a lot to love here. The OP, “Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki”, is just as great as the opening from the first series, and the ED, “Donna Toki mo Zutto”, is also enjoyable, once again being sung by different arrangements of µ’s based on the episode.
Animation is once again handled by Sunrise, of Gundam and Gintama fame, and they continue to do a really spectacular job, with the show continuing to be incredibly colourful and energetic. The exaggerated facial expressions that I loved from last time also return in spades, giving us such gems as Umi’s now infamous poker face. The slightly awkward CG animation during the performance scenes is still ever-present, however, and isn’t really an improvement over the last season, which is a little disappointing to see. However, CGI aside, Love Live! continues to look great.
In Summary
Love Live! School Idol Project Season 2 is the ideal sequel series. Not only does it take the weakest part of the first season and turn it into one of its biggest strengths, it also includes everything that made the original so fantastic to begin with. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, but, most of all, it will make you fall in love with Love Live! all over again.
