Opening Songs
OP 1 - Bokura Wa Ima Mada De (μ's)
Ending Songs
ED 1 - Kitto Seishun Ga Kikoeru (μ's)
Genre: Drama
Episodes: 13
So, you ready for more "The Idolm@ster"!?....Wait, no, this is something different. Seriously, when I saw "Love Live!", I immediately thought "Idolm@ster", because it was so similar in so many ways. Singing, dancing, bonding between girls and pursuing a musical career for a better cause.....can you tell me that its not similar? Still, there are some differences that make it stand out from its overshadowing counterpart. "Love Live!" focuses more about school life for these girls instead of making a professional living out of it like the girls in 765 pro like to do, and because of that, the girls are a lot less "business" (still, the "Idolm@ster" girls aren't really too business like either), they're more about having fun doing what they love. If you want to watch "Love Live!", just picture "The Idolm@ster", but with all the characters doing their music related things in school, like an after school club activity.
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| Meet your idols! |
Being an anime all about idols, music and singing, its no surprise here that the songs used for the opening and ending theme are all by the seiyuus of the main characters themselves. The opening song is "Bokura Wa Ima Mada De", and well, it sounds just like an "Idolm@ster" opening song, which fits the theme here. Its a happy, upbeat song and I guess its supposed to sound inspiring. I would put it somewhere between "Ready!" and "Change!" (opening songs of "The Idolm@ster"). The ending song "Kitto Seishun Ga Kikoeru" sounds better IMO, since it has a catchier tune and more synchronized singing between all the girls. A great ending song, better than I expected.
Rating: 8.0/10
Maybe I'm a sucker for animes like these, I don't know. "Love Live!" may not be as entertaining as "The Idolm@ster" was, but its close. There's just as much drama here as there is in "The Idolm@ster" to make things interesting. Sure there's less characters here, but that doesn't mean character development or screen time for characters is lacking. There may be less characters, but 9 idols in an idol group is still pretty big (look at "Girl's Generation"), and it still makes up for some crazy shenanigans. The characters have different personalities, but some are just flat out annoying sometimes. Overall, everyone would have their own pick for a favorite, but in my opinion, everyone becomes somewhat likable towards the end. There's a lot less singing than you'd think though, but its fine because the anime makes up for it with tons of interesting situations.
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| SO MANY GIRLS....but not as much as in"The Idolm@ster"! |
The story talks about Honoka, a 2nd year student her school that she loves. One day it was decided by the school principal that the school would shut down due to a lack of demand in new students, and this troubled Honoka. She wanted to save the school, but she did not know how. While she was walking around town one day she noticed a popular school with tons of onlookers cheering on their school idols, a group known as "Arise". Honoka had an idea to save the school, to start a school idol group. She gets her 2 best friends Kotori and Umi to start a group together with her. Things start out fine, but they needed a composer, so Honoka looked up a first year student she found playing the piano one day. After the 3 of them received a song from her, the journey began.
"Love Live!" is just as good as they come. Its a great anime on its own, with many reasons to love it (if you can open your eyes to these kinds of anime), and while I keep comparing it to "The Idolm@ster", it actually stands fine on its own. It needs more popularity, I tell you, and hopefully the upcoming second season answers for that.
Peace.
