They lost me. Nijigasaki is a failure. I approve of trying to be different, but the things this show jettisoned include "why people watch drama". The anime industry can drive me nuts. They'll decide their audience doesn't want meaningful story content or protagonists with goals. This can yield a surprising variety of howling voids, e.g. slice-of-life "Cute Girls Do Cute Things" like Is The Order A Rabbit?, do-nothing iyashikei that seem to have declined in recent years, otaku-wank isekai power fantasy, the second decade of PreCure and now Love Live!. This show's girls don't want anything... or, rather, they're not sure. Will they put on a show? Maybe. They'll think about it. Will they be an official school club? Perhaps. They might discuss it at some point. I didn't mind Nijigasaki's first season, but this follow-up is almost entirely without dramatic content. The girls smile, sing and dance for thirteen episodes. Yes, and?

This season's story template (such as it is) is for a girl to be mistaken, stupid and/or in denial. Her friends encourage her to be an idol. Will she take the plunge? Sometimes this sort of works, but I rarely cared whether or not this week's girl wanted to do X or Y. Also, the cast's still too big, so tends to come across as a thirteen-headed blancmange of Generic Anime Girls. My favourite Season 1 character (Kasumi) isn't funny this year until ep.10.

This problem is underlined by two new characters who have a dramatic point. Zhong Lanzhu and to a lesser extent Mia Taylor can bring episodes alive, even if only briefly. Lanzhu is a fan of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club... but she refuses to join them, denigrates their motives, calls them pathetic and establishes herself as a rival idol. Apparently she's a bit grating in the original mobile phone games. Here, she's nice. She's supportive. She's still a fan, buying their merchandise. But she's still their rival. She can wake you up after a crushingly tedious episode of nothing just with a facial expression... but that highlights by comparison the fact that you've just spent 25 minutes watching nothing.

There's also lots of bullshit.

EPISODE 2 = the stalker group in sunglasses and facemasks? Sod off. They're so obviously absurd that they're an insult to the audience.

EPISODE 6 = ridiculous lies to pretend that Setsuna Yuki isn't simultaneously an idol and the school council president. The person they're lying to serves with her on the school council and has walked in on Setsuna in idol mode. Again, it's so stupid that it kills the episode.

EPISODE 7 = Shioriko doesn't want to be an idol because she thinks her older sister's dreams were crushed and she was plunged into despair because... uh, she didn't win a competition. This sister is healthy and normal. Bugger off.

EPISODE 8 = Takasaki has writer's block and hasn't written the last song for the gang's festival. Which is today. The girls leave the slot open and wait for Takasaki to finish writing... and it's the last slot in the festival, i.e. the grand finale. Even if the song gets finished (which inevitably it will in a show like this), how are the girls planning to learn the music and lyrics? Rehearsals? Blocking out the dance movies? This show is taking the piss when it comes to how much work is required for a performance like that. Ultimately, they succeed triumphantly, but I don't believe it. Trained professionals couldn't have put on that show in the available time.

EPISODE 9 = "I gave 100% of me, but those girls still surpassed me." You don't understand the concept of competition, do you? Also, there's always a next time. Things only get stupider when she goes into more detail. She's such an idiot that her friend's reply is, "Seriously, could you open your bonehead eyes and look at what's in front of you?"

ALSO NOTE = "As long as you want to be a school idol, everyone will accept you." Hurrah! Talent, hard work, personality, etc. are irrelevant!

That's the show's best episode, by the way. It's the Lanzhu-Taylor dramatic finale... but there are still four more non-episodes after that, in the dramatic equivalent of watching air escape from balloons. Nothing happens, but with singing and dancing.

I'm being harsh, obviously. The show's not entirely without virtues. The girls are likeable and the episodes are pleasant, if you know not to expect intelligence, a storyline or a point. Occasionally it has not-worthless episodes, e.g. ep.4. Ultimately, though, this show made me write "Why am I watching this?" and "Got bored." The spin-off series of three-minute Nijiyon episodes is even more pointless, incidentally, while I'd sooner stick pins in my eyes than watch the trilogy of Nijigasaki feature films they're making.