Since the Fall season last year was quite busy, I didn’t quite finish the anime for the third generation of Love Live.
As expected, instead of doing the whole save the school thing, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club finally shake things up with focus on the individual idols. Not only that, the main character also isn’t a school idol at all. With that, does it live up to the previous generations? Let’s find out.
The story focuses on Yu and her childhood friend, Ayumu. They spent time at the mall and shared to eat each other’s food. Of course, an idol named Setsuna performed, and she apparently goes to the same school as them. They saw her performance before Setsuna disappeared. While Ayumu seems hesitant at the idea of becoming a school idol, but she decides to give it a try. Sadly, when Yu and Ayumu got to the club room, Nana, the student council president took the place card down.
While Kasumi becomes upset over the club being disbanded and tries to reestablish the club. Eventually, Nana comes clean and reveals herself that she was Setsuna after Karin and other school idols find out about her identity. Setsuna decided to disband the club after she got into a confrontation with Karin and other school idols. Ultimately, Yu manages to convince her to rejoin the School Idol Club. Later, Ai, Rina, and Karin eventually join the club.
Eventually, the school idol club eventually decide to participate in a school idol festival. They eventually decided that each idol will perform individually at different locations. While the individual performances went well on festival day, the weather took a turn for the worst until 7 PM. However, they were able to fit in one more performance with the entire Nijigasaki High School Idol Club.
As expected, I must admit that it was nice to see the franchise take a different take. Instead of focusing on the whole group as we see with the original series and Sunshine, the focus is on the individual idol. Also, another big difference is that Takasaki Yu doesn’t become a school idol since she represents the school idol.
On the other hand, there is also a big difference with the voice actresses chosen for their roles. Since the focus is on solo performances, solo singing skills are more important. Of course, there are some notable names such as Kitou Akari and Kusunoki Tomori. Not to mention, Kanata, which Akari voices has a somewhat similar personality to Seiun Sky in Uma Musume with a laid-back personality.
Aside from that, I must admit that with this arrangement, it’s nice to learn about each girl and most of the cast are enjoyable. Sure, I thought I won’t like Rina given that she doesn’t show her face and hides behind a mask or notebook. However, with some of her aspects since she is very skilled at technology, but introverted and shy. However, Kasumi is somewhat a mixed bag. But even so, there are some nice pairings with Rina and Ai, Yu and Ayumu/Setsuna probably being some notable ones.
Overall, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is a fun and interesting take on the Love Live franchise. Besides the performances, it takes a different approach compared to the last two installments. Also, it’s nice to see Yu be a great leader who supports the members and resolving their issues while working behind the scenes to make the festival performances a success. With that, this makes me wonder what the second season will bring. We’ll see soon enough.
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