Another series I watched because the sub group I was following was subbing it, Love Live is about a pack of girls who learn that their school is closing down due to lack of new applicants and decide to become School Idols (apparently this is a thing?) in order to rekindle interest in their alma mater and save the school from being closed. Naturally, this involves building a group and an audience, not to mention getting in shape enough to perform, having songs to sing, and being good enough to not make their school look bad by association.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't really get 'Idols' (I'm using the term here entirely in its Japanese Pop singer starlet connotation) or why people would get all otaku about them, but despite that, I found myself caring about the characters here.
The series is actually quite good at surprises despite its simple premise. The cast is a little too big for everyone to get proper screen time, but what we see is all fun and cute. Music is obviously an important part of the premise and if you can get over the engrish, it's pretty catchy. The only thing that consistently twinged my eyes is when they cut to a very high-performance version of I think Miku Miku Dance for some of the choreography animation, the shift is jarring and always glaringly obvious. I consistently tried to figure out what it was about that animation shift that bothered me but never could, it just kinda hurts to watch.
Despite that, the series manages itself well and gets its point across without feeling like any real magic happens besides friendship: a major theme is that doing what you love is hard work, and only hard work gets you anywhere. Overall, the writing is solid but not outstanding, the plot doesn't feel contrived, and the characters are (mostly) believable and cute.
What Love Live! lacks is anything truly amazing. And that's really the harshest thing I can say about it, the rest is all surprisingly good. It's fun, it's sweet without being saccharine, it's teaching some good lessons about hard work and guts.
If you need male characters or if occasional weird not-quite uncanny valleyish animation bugs the heck out of you or if engrish in music drives you up a wall, don't watch Love Live. But if you need some girls being absolutely adorable and emotional and dressing up in cute costumes and singing, it's not a bad way to unwind, and it will make you smile.
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