Love Live! - Anime Review

Love Live! is a 26 episode series complete with a 99 minute movie in the Slice of Life genre. This story starts off with series protagonist, Honoka Kousaka, discovering her school is going to be closed down due to low enrollment. Thinking of ways to increase her school's popularity, she finally settles on forming a high school Idol group. The problem is, trying to get something like that going is quite difficult!

Love Live! is a series about friendship. Doing something you love with the people you love. It is quite romantic, really. Honoka brings 9 people together with the goal of keeping their school from closing. They are quite the unique bunch, too. It makes each character stand out from the pack. Even with 9 members, everyone eventually gets a decent amount of development time. This makes all the characters feel more real.

The story is pretty basic since the main focus is on the cast. If you are looking for a lot of depth and nuance here, you are not going to find it. It is all about working hard, achieving goals, and having a great time doing it all! There is plenty of humor spread around to keep you smiling, at least. There was one early scene with Nico that caused literal pain. You will know it when you see it.

If I had to level any criticisms against the way this series is put together, I would say the concerts themselves are the weakest parts. Ya, the singing and dancing are great, but they just seem to happen suddenly which is a bit jarring. While we see the girls practicing, often, we see very little of the rest of the production development. I wish this were a bit improved but it is not the end of the universe.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this series. Being a Slice of Life, it really does a great job of making the weight of lofty decisions palpable. These kids are taking on a huge responsibility and the repercussions of such things might not be what they had in mind when they initially set out. That's why it's so good, though! Life is about making choices.

Recommendation

Of course I recommend this! If you have an aversion to an all-girl cast you may not like this. It's pretty much safe for all ages, though. Which is something I actually find somewhat rare in anime.

Potential Super Tiny Spoiler: I would also say that if you plan to invest in this series, either get it all, or get the first part then the second part and the movie together. The first part seems like a decent enough place to stop whereas the second half ends on a total cliff-hanger which leads into the movie.