I have a frivolous theory I don't believe about Nijigasaki. What if Sunrise had been deliberately making a pointless, empty version of Love Live! to demonstrate how good Superstar!! is? People might have been taking the franchise for granted and not noticing how funny, clever and well-animated this is, since it's yet another idol/schoolgirl anime in a franchise that's been running for years.
As usual, it's about schoolgirl idols who've traditionally wanted to win a competition called Love Live!. Season 1 had only five girls, but Season 2 adds another four, since a year has passed and our heroines are looking for recruits among the new first-year intake.
It's great. I laughed a lot. It's full of jokes that have been given an extra boost (or even just created from nowhere) by the director and animators. The show's face game is so strong that it might make it hard to return to old anime in, say, a 1990s art style. I could spend all day watching these girls' goofy faces and appreciating the show's comic timing.
The four new girls are:
6. KINAKO = the normal one, i.e. she fades into the background against the other loons. Nine protagonists is too many, despite being the default number for Love Live!. She's the nicest of the new girls, though, and gets on particularly well with Kanon.
7-8. MEI & SHIKI = personality-challenged friends who comprise the school's two-member Science Club. Mei resembles a harsh-talking tsundere with self-esteem problems. She's a school idol fangirl, but has a tendency to overreact to that. Meanwhile, Shiki talks like a robot and is extremely fond of Mei in a franchise that's renowned for lesbian subtext.
9. NATSUMI = who's utter steaming trash, i.e. a YouTuber. Functionally, she's a villain. There's a lot of hatred for her in fandom because she's two-faced money-grubbing scum. She'll become less unlikeable, but her worldview doesn't vanish. She goes from "villain" to "benevolent villain who wants to be a heroine and does pretty well at training, singing and generally pulling her weight". She also generates comedy failure and outrageous faces. There are times when she's hard to take, but she lights a match under the show's already impressive energy levels.
This season has villains, unlike Season 1. (Sunny Passion were the rivals to beat, but they were supportive and lovely.) Natsumi drifts towards that category, but Wien Margarete ticks every box. (Well, by fluffy schoolgirl idol anime standards, anyway.) Her beliefs make her the ice-cold opposite of our heroines and she enriches the show's themes. The concluding face-off between her and Liella raises questions and challenges the meaning of what our girls are doing. For what it's worth, Gundam fans have said she looks like a Gundam character.
Some fans have called Season 2 a sharp drop on Season 1. I disagree, although that's definitely the case with Season 3. The producers squeezed a lot into these twelve episodes and didn't cover everything in as much detail as they might have, but personally I'm comfortable with that. (They don't duck the hard fact that the first-years are unavoidably greener than the second-years, for instance.) I also don't really mind the cast size returning to Love Live! formula, although the smaller cast of Season 1 had been a smart move. Mind you, this season barely even pays lip-service to its genre. Surprisingly little time is spent on singing, dancing and idoling. What happens to Sunny Passion is out of the blue. The season finale takes the franchise staple of "Love Live competition finale" and shoves it under a bus, with negligible screen time given to the performances, the other competitors, the judging, etc.
This is a good thing. We've seen it before and it's just idol stuff.
The season is thoughtful and funny. The character contrasts (especially Margarete) are interesting. The girls are good at discussing things and challenging each other's bad decisions. The finale made me laugh. It's good stuff. They definitely earned their surprise third season, even if the results of that proved so-so.
