Title: Love Live! School Idol Project, ラブライブ! School idol project
Producers: Sunrise, Lantis, NIS America, Inc.L
Genres: Music
Duration: 24 min. per episode
With Otonokizaka High School planning to close within three years, nine female students come together with one thing in mind—form a pop idol group to revive the school’s popularity and keep it from shutting down. Their goal is simple: Become an overnight sensation and use their nationwide media exposure to promote their school and bring in a wave of new students to the ailing area. A simple but solid plan, they figure. Naturally, they’re nervous and wonder if this plan can really succeed, but for better or worse their new journey has begun…/p>
Fansubs watched: FFF
I am actually starting to like this anime. Believe it or not, Love Live may actually be an anime I may continue to watch, my guilty pleasure- please tell no one. The girls have taken up to start their idol group by requesting it to the student council, which is accepted by the vice president- much to the president’s surprise. Honoka, Kotomi and Umi start to brainstorm ideas on their new idol group, including coming up with the name and uniforms- also something about short skirts. Having no luck with the names, they decide to set up a box and ask the students for some names, while in the meantime they find a good place to practice singing, on the roof. But they cannot practice without a song or even do anything idol related. Idols require intense training in singing and dancing and so they begin their rigorous training. The next day they received a suggestion for the name: µ which becomes their idol name. But the next day at school, the student council president confronts Hanoka informing them that the failure of the group could shut down the school. Hanoka still needs a song or something to work with, and using Umi’s lyrics and Maki’s excellent piano composing skills; they have officially formed an Idol group and reached 999 in the rankings.
Yes, in the first episode I did mind the character designs somewhat and the weird makeup the characters had but for some reason it all disappeared. I don’t mind how they looked; in fact they looked pretty and somewhat attractive… It might be some weird magic but I am thoroughly enjoying Love Live! The music is fantastic, the characters are lively and the premise is just damn fun. Everything in this episode is just pure fun, good enjoyment that I wouldn’t expect from this. Sure there isn’t any complexity to the stories or the characters- so far- but it is a blast to watch.
On the more analytical side of things, the idol group is finally formed- yay- under the name µ (which now I know is pronounced muse, see this anime has also taught me things) and their first song is completed. We may also see Umi become the lyricist of the group, making her very similar to Mio’s role and personality. There are also scenes of other characters that have an interest in joining the group – as confirmed by the ending and opening- and one of the girls has a horribly high pitched and annoying voice. Ultimately, the characters probably won’t have any deep and profound background since it is an anime about singing and becoming the best idol group there is. For some reason, this episode put a smile on my face, not a pervy one but something of joy…weird.
This episode also introduces the ending for the series, which is much better than the opening in respect to the song and animation, none of that CGI crap. The song itself is nice to listen to and has a nice tone to it. Of course, the characters themselves sing the song so you know it will be good and plain awesome. As for the animation, it shows that the members of µ are having fun practicing and training to become idols in order to save the school but that becomes only one factor. We also see the other characters in the group, but I try not to pay attention to it.
Despite all the negativities I found in the first episode, I have grown to love most of them and ignore the lack of depth and focus on the fun bits, young teenage girls singing in a bright environment.
