Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2

Season Overview

Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2 (Love Live! Nijigasaki Gakuen School Idol Doukoukai 2nd Season / ラブライブ! 虹ヶ咲学園スクールアイドル同好会) changes the formula of the series again. The previous season focused on solo idols, and this season focuses on small idol groups.

You may recall from the first season that the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club doesn’t have an idol group. The original Love Live! anime has the group μ’s (Muse). Sunshine!! has the group Aqours. And Superstar!! has the group Liella! But, the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club was always about solo idols who happened to be in the same club.

That’s not the case anymore. But, that doesn’t mean Nijigasaki has one big idol group now. Instead, the solo idols of Nijigasaki formed small idol groups among themselves. For example, Ayumu Uehara, Shizuku Ousaka, and Setsuna Yuuki form the group A・ZU・NA.

In the end, the 12 girls who make up the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club (excluding Yuu Takasaki) form four idol groups. There’s A・ZU・NA, DiverDiva, R3BIRTH, and QU4RTZ. If you guessed R3BIRTH has three members and QU4RTZ has four members, you’d be correct.

I wasn’t a big fan of the whole solo idol gimmick that Nijigasaki had going on. But, the introduction of smaller idol groups is more interesting. I may even prefer it over having one large group made up of all the idols in the club. Smaller groups have more character.

Now, if you haven’t watched the season yet, you may be wondering where I got 12 members of the club from. In Season 1, there were nine members of the club (excluding Yuu). Well, three new members join the club throughout this season. But, they aren’t completely new characters — they’re familiar faces.

New Members of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club

The first of the three new Nijigasaki High School Idol Club members is Lanzhu Zhong. Lanzhu was the main idol outside of the club in Season 1. But, in Season 2, she joins the club after the other girls invite her.

If this was any other entry in the Love Live! series, I wouldn’t have expected Lanzhu to join the club. But, because Nijigasaki focused on solo idols, it always made sense for Lanzhu to join. And, once she does join, she becomes a member of the idol group R3BIRTH.

Next to join the club is Mia Taylor, which was a bit of a surprise. Mia is one of the music students along with Yuu. But, unlike Yuu, Mia joins the club as an idol. That’s what makes Mia joining so strange. You’d think that if she joined, it would be in a role like Yuu’s.

Mia is the second member of the idol group R3BIRTH. That makes sense when you consider Mia’s role has always been to support Lanzhu so far. And, if you couldn’t guess by now, this is the group made up of the three new characters.

The third new club and R3BIRTH member is the most surprising. It’s Shioriko “Shioko” Mifune. Even before joining the idol club, Lanzhu and Mia were involved with music. Shioriko wasn’t. She’s a friend of Lanzhu’s and a member of the student council alongside Setsuna. But, she wasn’t involved with music herself.

Now, Shioriko did receive a backstory that explained why she’s now interested in being an idol. But, I’d still say she’s the big surprise of the three. Her inclusion felt sudden and I don’t feel like she adds that much to the dynamic of R3BIRTH.

Still the Worst Love Live! Entry

Forming small groups out of Nijigasaki’s solo idols is an improvement over Season 1. But, that’s not enough to make Nijigasaki High School Idol Club not the worst Love Live! entry. And, my biggest problem with this entry of the series is that the girls are too individual.

Because Nijigasaki focused on solo idols instead of a group (or groups), each idol had to be unique — very unique. This is how we end up with someone like Kanata Konoe. Her defining characteristic is that she’s sleepy. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that to be very interesting.

If Nijigasaki had used the small group format from the start, it would likely be better. Think about how Kanata fits into QU4RTZ. Her characterization has nothing to do with the other members of the group. In order for her to fit in, we have to set her characterization aside.

In comparison, look at any of the idols from the other entries of the Love Live! series. They’re unique enough characters. But, they don’t have specific character traits that get in the way of the group dynamic.

What we’re left with at the end of Nijigasaki is four small idol groups, of which only two really make sense. A・ZU・NA works because the three girls who make it up don’t clash in any way. And the same is true for DiverDiva, which might be my favorite of the four.

R3BIRTH is alright. I don’t like that it’s the group for the new members of the club. But, I recognize that both Mia and Shioriko have connections to Lanzhu, so it works. QU4RTZ is the worst, though. It’s made up of the remaining four idols who don’t fit in anywhere else because they’re too unique.

Conclusion

Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2 is a 5/10. That’s the same score I gave to the first season. But, I’d say this season is slightly better than the first.

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