It's the best Love Live! instalment to date and its second season kept up the good work. Yes, I realise we're talking about a multi-media idol franchise that's been known to adapt mobile phone games. Men barely exist in its universe. Idiot schoolgirls try to become idols, sometimes to stop their school from closing. (You'd think finding idols would be a reason to send in pest exterminators, but apparently instead it'll mean an increased student intake.)

This show is more of that. It's not a revolution in drama and the only thing it's doing is the fairly straightforward job of being Love Live!. However...

1. It's got a smaller core cast. We're only following five girls (and one of those hates school idols until two-thirds of the way through the season), compared with 9, 9 and 12+ in previous Love Live!s. Too many. You'd only assemble a core cast that big if you were making a game. Nijigasaki was pleased with itself just for giving everyone a focus episode, but here we have story arcs, development and recurring character points.

2. They've brought back the franchise's original director and scriptwriter. Its production is sparkling with imaginative visual touches, wit and goofy facial expressions.

3. It's funny. Our heroines are 60% fruitcakes. KEKE TANG (half-Chinese) loves school idols more than anything and will bow down before their pictures like a native on Skull Island. She's wonderful. SUMIRE HEANNA wants to be a star and her hobby is lingering outdoors looking cute in the hope of being scouted. She's got a Godzilla ego and attracts comedy failure. REN HAZUKI has a fierce sense of duty and a semi-tragic backstory, but underneath that also a goofball lack of common sense and a near-total ignorance of the real world.

The protagonist, KANON SHIBUYA, is a significant comedy character too. She gave up on her dream of being a singer because she gets stage fright. She didn't want to be an idol. The default for Love Live! protagonists is more like Keke, but Kanon is hesitant, demure and a bit boyish.

Finally, CHISATO ARASHI is the One Sane Man and Kanon's wife-to-be. (Although there are fans cheering for Kanon-Keke.) Chisato and Kanon are childhood friends, but also capable of making harsh-looking choices for the other's good.

There's the odd storytelling glitch. I'm not sure about ep.3's big revelation. It's such an obvious possibility that you'd expect the girls to have considered that and tested it. Also, the "rap" song at the end of ep.10 isn't rap, although I'm not complaining. (It's also been called the best song this season.)

This isn't an ambitious show. It's fun. Schoolgirls try to sing and dance. It does, though, have solid character work, jokes and lots of playfulness. Superstar got three seasons, to my surprise, and the second one's great too. (Season 3 is okay.) I never even skipped through any of the title sequences.