It’s been a minute since I last covered Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club in episode reviews. I thought about starting Season 2 right after Season 1 so that I could then see the Next Sky OVA but I ended up tackling Sunshine!! next so that I can cover YOHANE THE PARHELION for the Summer 2023 season. After that, I wanted to go through everything else post-Nijigasaki Season 1 by release order so I covered Superstar!! Season 1 next (and that’s currently my favorite Love Live! season so far). Now that all of that has been dealt with, I’m finally back with Nijigasaki, the series that started this rabbit hole of episode reviews.
Revisiting Nijigasaki is interesting, now that I have other series in the franchise to compare it to. I don’t know if I’d rank Season 1 that highly on a list but I’ve grown to at least appreciate how different it is from its brethren. The school isn’t closing down (and frankly, Njigasaki High School is so goddamn fancy that there’s no way it would be short on applicants). The main protagonist of the show isn’t a school idol but the other girls’ manager. Everyone performs solo as opposed to in a group and that allows for a wider variety and more individuality expressed in the music. If nothing else, this show is unique within the franchise and I can understand someone preferring this over Superstar!! (which Nijigasaki now runs concurrently with).
Looking back, 2022 was a very productive year for Love Live!. Both Nijigasaki and Superstar!! had their second seasons air that year and Superstar!! resumed right when Nijigasaki went on hiatus so fans had a whole half year of Love Live! on TV and streaming. It looked crazy to me and evidently, the production committee decided not to repeat it since Nijigasaki is going the movie route while Superstar!! continues for a third season but it must’ve worked out fine since both shows are continuing.
Season 2 takes place in a new school term, with Yu (Hinako Yano) now attending the music curriculum at Nijigasaki High School. Following the success of the school idol festival last season, the Nijigasaki school idol club plans on holding a second one and they produce a PV to promote it during an upcoming open house. In the PV, the girls dress up in suits (which sort of explains some certain shots in Season 1’s OP) and they apparently have superpowers? I’m not sure if this is the most accurate advertisement for what is ultimately a bunch of pop music concerts but whatever. I’ve seen crazier commercials. Honestly, I’m more perplexed by the PV’s quality. Shizuku is directing (Kaori Maeda) while Rina (Chiemi Tanaka) handles VFX and editing. How either of them, especially Rina, doesn’t graduate early and get a bunch of job offers when their craft is this good is beyond me.
Meanwhile, we get introduced to three new characters in the main cast. The first is Lanzhu Zhong (Akina Homoto), a girl from Hong Kong who has transferred to Nijigasaki to become a school idol. She is accompanied by her friend Mia Taylor (Shu Uchida), who appears to be a tech whiz and speaks both Japanese and English. Both girls happen to be friends with Shioriko Mifune (Moeka Koizumi), a first-year student who serves in the student council under Setsuna (Tomori Kuzunoki). We now have thirteen main characters in Njigasaki. Because ten characters was clearly not enough.
I’m very curious to see how Season 2 will handle its cast. I can actually see Season 2 having an easier time than Season 1 at juggling the cast. All of the original nine idols in the club had their own episode so you really only need to the spotlight over each of the three new characters. Outside of that, the show is free to mix and match who gets the spotlight in a given episode. I honestly wouldn’t mind it if there are less episodes revolving around a single character. We had that with Season 1 and in hindsight, that got very repetitive. That said, we’re still dealing with thirteen main characters this season and on paper, that frankly sounds too much.
There’s also the manner regarding the soundtrack. Because everyone is a solo idol, Nijigasaki has to give each of them an insert song and a MV (hence each character getting their own episode). As someone who digs Love Live‘s music, it is awesome hearing so much music in one season. At the same time however, it can also feel exhausting hearing that much, especially back to back (there are only two episodes in Season 1 without an insert song). So how is this going to work with three new school idols added into the mix? Season 2 has thirteen episodes so it can have one song per episode from each character and one episode with a group performance. It’d be a very tight and inflexible arrangement, however. I can also see Season 2 having some characters perform together to alleviate the issue but that does come at the risk of undermining the solo idol setup and it would suck for fans of certain characters. Right now, I don’t see a clear-cut solution.
Anyway, we see Lanzhu introducing herself to Nijigasaki’s school idol club and she joins them in seeing the PV broadcasted throughout one of the school’s buildings. Things go awry however when Kasumi (Mayu Sagara) accidentally hands over an outtake reel for the school to play, instead of Shizuku and Rina’s masterpiece (poor girls literally worked to the last minute to get it one). That Kasumi is to blame for this hiccup is very on brand for this show. With technical help from Mia, Lanzhu buys the club some time by grabbing the school’s attention with a school idol performance of her own. Lanzhu’s MV is simply great and it’s probably one of my favorites from Nijigasaki. The whole scene just oozes confidence and charisma, which is fitting given her personality and appropriate given that she’s one of the new characters added into an established cast. The animation and editing also gets really impressive towards the end.
Despite helping the idol club out, Lanzhu reveals that she has no intention of joining them. She intends on being the best school idol around without anyone’s help (except for Mia’s, I guess?) and she intends on proving it during the school idol festival. If I had a nickel for every time Love Live‘s Chinese girl is toxic, I’d still have two nickels but it’s funny that it’s happened twice now (though I’d say Lanzhu has it worse than Keke). Oddly enough, Lanzhu takes issue more with Yu than any of the established idols in the club. She argues that Yu should stop helping the idol club so that she can better pursue her music endeavors. Yu of course decides against it, confident that she can continue on her path while helping the club along the way. I’m not exactly sure how this rivalry will play out when these two aren’t technically doing the same thing but I’m sure things will be amended soon and Yu will get yet another member in her harem.
Watch Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club on Crunchyroll and Funimation
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