Monday 21 April 2014

Love Live! School Idol Project Season 2 - Episode 3

They have themselves a song and costumes, now the next question for μ's as the Love Live preliminaries begin is... where should they perform?

The world is their oyster as far as the regulations go, as each group's performance will be live streamed from their chosen location with viewers able to vote and rate the various groups, with only the top four going through to the Love Live finals.  With A-RISE a clear favourite to claim one of those berths, there's only three spots left to scrap over in the Tokyo area, which leaves the group fretting over selecting a location that will be suitably novel, or in the case of some of their number simply fretting about performing in front of the massed crowd that is the Internet.


In terms of choosing a location, help comes from a surprising quarter... that of A-RISE themselves.  With their leader having "kidnapped" Honoka, μ's assemble at UTX High School to find themselves lavished with praise by their rivals, who it seems have been watching them closely since the first Love Live.  Not that all of this praise means that A-RISE are going to go easy on them, but such is the friendly nature of their rivalry that they are willing to share the custom-build stage at their school for the preliminaries.  Duly accepting this offer, it's time for μ's and A-RISE to face off in front of their adoring crowds - but who will win the day?  I guess that's a question for next week...

This week's episode of Love Live gave us another showcase of what this series does well - it doesn't go in for major drama or deep-seated rivalries, instead depicting a rather idealistic world where everyone gets on with one another and any rivalries are set up with a smile and a promise of friendship.  It may not add depth to the show, but it does allow it to get on with being pure, simple and undemanding entertainment, which is succeeds in once again here thanks to some decent music (which seems to be improved from the first season, in all honest), decent animation and a simple sense of fun that runs through it.

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