Review

Love Live! Superstar!! Episode 2: Idols Are Banned

Love Live Superstar episode 2 has aired and it continues the franchise’s tradition of banning idols. After all, it wouldn’t be a Love Live anime without banning any sort of idol activities. To any Love Live fan or to those who watched the previous generations, this is no surprise. In fact, the one who bans the idol activities eventually becomes part of the group. Each generation has a different reason for banning school idols, but what kind of reasoning is it this time? Let’s find out!

School Idols Are Banned

Ren Hazuki is one of the members of the council and is the one who is managing clubs. She meets Keke and Kanon and explains the prohibition of school idol activities to them. According to her, music is the pride and joy of their school and the students dedicate themselves to music. Therefore, for every music-related contest or activity, the ones representing their school must be top tier. Ren also adds that there’s an abundance of school idols nowadays. The competition and standards have become higher than ever. With all these factors in mind, she doesn’t want to risk their school’s reputation.

Kanon, Keke, and Ren being confronted by the Director

While Ren indeed does have a point in all of this, it’s still quite unfair to not at least try. Moreover, stripping the rights and interests of other students is way above her scope of activities as the principal of the school pointed out. After all this, she changes her mind and is willing to approve the club under one condition – they must win.

Chisato’s Role

With the approval of their school idol club on the line, Keke and Kanon instantly prepare for the upcoming school idol festival. They ask Chisato to lend them a hand on dancing. Kanon even emphasizes how everyone admired her dancing when they were young. Keke asks Chisato to become part of their group. Before she can give her response, Kanon is immediately interrupted. She then tells Keke that she cannot ask for more from her childhood friend. Chisato seems to be on edge regarding this decision. Could she really be interested in becoming a school idol herself?

Chisato about to train Keke and Kanon

A New Kanon

In the last episode, Kanon found her resolve and is now ready to achieve the idol dream with Keke. In this episode, we can see how determined and passionate she has become. She stays up all night to compose songs, trains hard with Keke and Chisato, and is even enthusiastic about spending time with her family. She’s even willing to physically pull a wagon, while Keke collects signatures for the petition.

Kanon’s reaction after finishing the song she’s composing

A Glimpse of Sumire

We finally get to see more of Sumire’s personality in this episode. She’s a bit of an airhead, judging from the short scene that she was in. She is also quite observant of her surroundings. But, it also seems like she doesn’t want others to spot her other side. At the end of her scene, she overhears the idol group’s name which makes her curious.

Sumire observing the place

Keke’s Weakness

Tang Keke has a huge passion for school idols and her sheer determination is to become one. After all, she left her country and went to Japan to achieve her dream. She even considers leaving the school, if they ban school idols. She is also able to fall asleep anywhere and can even answer a math question after waking up. Talk about a talent that everyone desires. Even though she is amazing at many things, she still has a weakness – she is terrible at sports.

Keke declaring her weakness

In the last part of the episode, we get to see Keke getting up early to prepare for her day. Even though she gets tired easily, she strives to overcome her weakness and presses forward to achieve her school idol dream. The episode ends with Keke and Kanon admiring the sunrise from their early morning jog. The sunrise signals the new dawn for the age of Liella.

Kanon and Keke admiring the sunrise

Both Keke and Kanon were absolutely admirable in this episode. They already showed progress, although they still have a long way to go. Aside from them, we got hints about the other three potential members of the group. Liella already passed the first hurdle of the franchise and managed to revoke the ban on school idols. A brilliant continuation of Love Live! Superstar’s first episode. I cannot wait how the others will join Kanon and Kekem and help them in their journey to becoming school idols.

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All screenshots are taken via Funimation
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Ken Pueyo

I can talk about seiyuus for days. A connoisseur of cute girls doing cute things and fluffy romance stories always make me smile. I mostly watch slice-of-life and rom-coms with drama on the side.

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Ken Pueyo