Love Live! School Idol Project season 2

Really enjoyed the first season of the “Love Live! School Idol Project” anime, so did not hesitate to pick up the sequel that started to air this spring season.

A multimedia project by studio Sunrise, music label Lantis and other corporations revolving around young girls who form an idol group in an attempt to prevent their school from being shut down, it not only spawned an anime but a manga, music and a game too.

As an idol genre series, it is of course similar to other idol shows like “the iDOLM@STER” or “Wake Up, Girls!”, though personally enjoyed “Love Live!” far more as it was more entertaining and its lively, upbeat songs lingered in my mind longer.

While the first season did have a few dramatic plot events, overall it had a very positive and uplifting atmosphere. Do appreciate how they refrained from having the characters reach all of their goals, especially the overly ambitious ones, all without leaving the audience hanging or feeling unsatisfied.

What struck me the most so far about this second season is the animation level and quality, have little doubt that after the success of the first season, studio Sunrise and its partners in the project significantly invested in this sequel, which shows.

Overall the animation is superb, with plenty of vivid colors and lots of attention going to rendering the girls as cute as possible, each of the girls having a unique style.

Next to the animation, everything else is pretty much identical to the first season, including the girls’ personalities, the catchy tunes of the opening and ending sequences along with the other typical idol style pop music inserted into the episodes.

Luckily the voice cast for all nine main girls reprise their roles in this sequel with lively Honoka voiced by Nitta Emi, she also voiced Elza in “Yuusha ni Narenakatta Ore wa Shibushibu Shuushoku wo Ketsui Shimashita” and Malga in “Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon”.

Uchida Aya voices Kotori, she previously voiced Ascoeur in “Kiddy Girl-and”, Kaede in “Yuru Yuri” and Shizuka in “Strike Witches”.

Umi is voiced by Mimori Suzuko, she’s tackled roles like Sarashiki in “IS: Infinite Stratos 2”, Himawari in “Yuru Yuri”, Myucel in “Outbreak Company” and Shion in “GJ-bu”.

Blonde Eri is voiced by Nanjou Yoshino who previously voiced Gankyou in “Joshiraku”, Maria in “Canaan” and Akiho in “Robotics;notes”.
Tokui Sora voices feisty Nico, she voiced Sasami in “Little Busters!”, Katia in “Fantasista doll” and this season also voices Maya in “Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka”.

Maki is voiced by Pile, Kusuda Aina voices Nozomi and Rin is voiced by Iida Riho, all of whom don’t seem to have any other roles credited to their name. Kubo Yurika who voices Hanayo previously voiced Hiyori in “Kotoura-san”.

Season two of “Love Live! School Idol Project” is a fixed weekly rendezvous on my anime watching calendar and so far am loving this sequel.

If you like idol genre series then you simply cannot miss this show and if you are looking for an upbeat and fun anime to watch, then I can recommend ”Love Live!”, though it is advised to have watched the first season before starting this sequel.