Remember Love Live? That thing μ’s is competing this season? Apparently, they’re still doing that. Go figure. I’m kidding but it has been five episodes since the preliminaries. Actually, make that six because the second round still hasn’t started. I don’t want to harp on this too much because this season has been fun so far but I can’t deny that the main plot is taking its sweet time.
After μ’s participates in a promotional event for Love Live, Nozomi suggests to her friends to create and perform love song for the next round. This is met with some skepticism as none of the girls have any romantic experience, which I kind of want to call bullcrap. With all the yuri subtext going on in the show and the franchise in general, what do you mean none of these girls are dating each other? But whatever, these characters are technically single so they’re not exactly experts when it comes to love.
The girls then try a couple things to get in the right headspace. The most notable attempt is when Nozomi records her friends acting out a scene where they each talk to an imaginary date. Really, this is a clever way for the show to provide the viewer some POV content so that they can imagine themselves being with their waifu if they choose to do so. To be fair, these scenes are still funny in their own right.
As you might expect, the biggest skeptic to this endeavor is Maki. From a pragmatic view, it doesn’t really make sense to create a new song in a genre μ’s is unfamiliar with and Maki knows this. Surprisingly, Eli is the most insistent with seeing a love song materialize. The episode does suggest that Eli is among the girls most interested in romance and Eli has learned to be more upfront with what she wants to do. Even so, she still wants to win Love Live so it starts to get peculiar when she continues to advocate for a long song even as the others begin to take Maki’s side. At one point, Rin makes a wild hunch that Eli is actually a double agent for A-Rise and this whole love song plan is meant to sabotage μ’s. Obviously, this is bonkers but I have to admit that it’d be amazing if this was true.
Despite convincing the club to let go of making a love song, Maki is still curious as to why Eli advocated for a love song so she decides to confront her and Nozomi. It is soon revealed that Eli wasn’t actually pushing for a love song for her sake but rather Nozomi’s. I suppose that much is obvious since Nozomi pitched the idea but Nozomi does have a deeper reason behind it. Growing up, Nozomi transferred to different schools so she didn’t make any friends until she transferred to Otonokizaka and befriended Eli. Because of her past, Nozomi actually cares a great deal about μ’s. The reason she pitched the love song is because she wanted all nine members to create something together. After Eli and Nozomi explain all this, Maki relents and the whole club brainstorms again.
It’s really nice to see Nozomi centric episode for a change. That’s never really happened before. For the most part, this show relegates Nozomi to being one of the weird ones, what with her staunch belief in Tarot card reading and her frequently copping a feel with her friends. I was okay with not knowing more about Nozomi but I’m glad to see her finally get the spotlight. Her backstory takes me by surprise and the fact that she actually has a very vulnerable underneath her serene and mischievous exterior is really interesting.
Watch Love Live! School Idol Project on Crunchyroll
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