What They Say:
Otonokizaka High School is planning to close within three years. However, nine female students come together with one thing in mind – form a pop idol group to revive the school’s popularity and keep it from shutting down. ‘In order to protect our beloved school, there’s only one thing we can do…become pop stars!
The Review:
Eli’s received some bad news from the school chairwoman – if the upcoming open day – two weeks away – doesn’t show enough interest from potential new students, then the school’s closure will be brought forward. Eli’s feeling particularly strong ties to the school – it’s where her grandmother went, for starters – and is determined to do all she can to make the open day a success, but while Honoka and the others are perfectly willing to do their part, Eli still can’t bring herself to accept the idea of school idols. Until Umi tries again to rope in her services as dance tutor…
Nothing like a little deadline to provide incentive to the girls to get their act together. Of course, there’s the small matter of getting past Eli’s frosty exterior and belief that the school will only be saved if they show just how serious a business education is – which of course kinda rules out fun stuff like school idols. All of this comes as no surprise, of course, but we’ve all seen the opening song & dance – there are nine girls in µ’s, Eli’s clearly one of them, and so this episode is on a countdown to the inevitable right from the start. It’s not a matter so much of whether Honoka and the others – including Nozomi – will get through to Eli, it’s just a matter of how.
Which would work a lot better if Eli’s ice-maiden personality didn’t make her an absolute pain to watch. As she begins to notice that she’s being drawn into the group’s orbit, her temperament seems to get even worse than usual – which really doesn’t help the episode’s appeal. Here’s hoping she lightens up now that she’s properly on board.
On the plus side, this episode does have some fun little moments, and also brings us the girls’ first live performance as a complete group, complete with training montage. There’s a certain amount of satisfaction to be had from seeing them finally all together, and the open day live routine isn’t half bad, either. As for whether enough’s been done to let the school live to fight another day… well, that’ll have to wait until next week.
In Summary:
Still not up to the standard of Love Live’s best, mainly down to Eli’s coldness. But the gang is all together and can now go on to hopefully greater things together. If only they had a few more episodes to do that it…
Content Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: 27” Apple iMac, 2.9GHz Core i5, 32GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.8.2
