Love Live! Nijigasaki 2.2: Hong Kong Mystery

A group of our heroines try to solve the mystery that is the Hong Kong Hottie.

During a meeting discussing the SIF progress Emma got a call from the cuties we saw after the ED last episode. They wanted to host a joint concert between Nijigasaki and Y.G. Academy, a school for foreign students studying in Japan. The girls were Jennifer and Rakshata. Players of the first SIF game will recognize them as “Normal” card girls, thus Ninigasaki continues the trend of adding N girls as side-characters, background characters or cameos via posters and school idol merch. So they basically wanted to plan a collab. They also thought Lanzhu was part of NijiGaku too since she had a surprise performance at Y.G.A. Alas as we know she’s not part of the group (yet).

Emma tried asking her to join the collab but she again refused to join the group. While Kasumin’s ego took a hit Emma was hit harder. We’ll get back to this later.

Shioriko didn’t do much this episode. I suppose the tidbit about Lanzhu not telling her about the Y.G.A performance hints that they don’t talk about idol stuff much.

We did learn some things about Mia. The Taylor family are famous musicians and she’s a musical prodigy. However, she’s socially awkward. When asked about her relationship with Lanzhu she said “I write the songs, she performs them. This way people will finally ACKNOWLEDGE ME. That’s all”. Mia must be a fan of the Tribal Chief. Good girl.

Back to Emma. Rina’s checking out a Lanzhu fan site when Kanata, Kasumi and Emma dropped by. Kasumi’s ego took another hit seeing the site while Rina wanted to check out the next Lanzhu performance coming up. Speaking of Lanzhu they saw her passing by. Emma tried asking her about the show but Kasumi wanted the four to go all stealth mode. Can’t have Love Live without undercover tsundere girls (dragging their friends along for the ride too).

She made several stops but the important one was at a store where she surprised our “agents” by buying NijiGaku merch. Kasumin’s ego was restored knowing they had merch.

After performing her glorious song from last time she spotted the four and nonchalantly invited them to her fancy apartment because of course she’s from a wealthy family. However, she came to Japan by herself so they were her first guests. After asking what they thought about her show she repeated her goal from last time, wanting to become the Ultimate School Idol fans cheered and looked up to. Emma wondered if she’s really okay with doing it solo. Lanzhu reiterated wanting to be the best by herself and didn’t like NijiGaku’s “treating fans like equals” mantra as it would cramp her style. The gang explained the club encouraged members to become the idols they wanted to be but she wouldn’t listen. She’s like “You want to prove your way is better than mine? Show me on stage.”

I could have used a better screen grab but Rina sliding into Emma was precious. Rina is love.

The reason Emma tried to reason with Lanzhu wasn’t because she wanted to force her to join the club but she wanted to befriend someone like her, a foreigner who came to Japan to become a school idol. Plus after their debate, beyond the hypocrisy of Lanzhu’s argument she could tell there’s more to her story. Like she said, if they couldn’t get her to open up through conversation then on the battlefield it would be. The four agreed to enter the festival as a quartet. They had the same goal after all.

.Miss Ai enjoyed teasing jelly Karin not getting to team up with Emma. It also showed Miss Ai wasn’t worried about Rina.

Oh yeah. Check out this awesome teru teru bozu Kanata and Haruka made.

Yu’s music class struggles continued but she’s determined to make it all work.

Great stuff as always.