Love Live! Superstar!! 2.2: Difficulty

I mentioned this to someone who said they were on the fence with Liella getting more members because the “5 members” thing made them fresh and unique. The problem with that argument was:

1: Gen 3, aka Nijigasaki already reign supreme as the unique group in the franchise.

2: Despite the members bringing their own flavor to the franchise they’re still a group whose main goal are to win the Love Live Championship, just like Gens 1 and 2.

Point being the direction they chose to follow last episode and this one make Liella feel much more fresh than being a former five member group.

We joined our trial member Kinako ready to “hit the dance floor” for training but as expected it was tough. Kinako admitted she’d always been poor at physical activity. Naturally our heroines knew this and did their best to motivate her with Kanon saying it’s tough at first but keep at it and she’d eventually get the hang of it.

As Kinako raced home Dr Shiki spotted and followed her with her sweet goggles and wheels. She sat her down to ask how the “school idol thing” was going. As I suspected she’s asking for Mei without the redhead knowing. Kinako said it’s tough but fun so far. The delightful doctor had a request.

Invite NicoMaki’s lovechild Mei to join Liella. Poor Kinako’s understandably afraid to do it after her first encounter with the redhead but went for it. Mei knew Dr Shiki made her ask and told Kinako to drop it because she “wasn’t interested”. Like her moms she did a poor job denying her love of school idols, specifically Liella as we saw last time.

Also like her moms she’s not a bad kid as seen here supporting a tired Kinako from her school idol training (she’s following Keke’s schedule) nearly arriving late for P.E. The other first years knew she joined Liella and saw their tough schedule as more proof to not join them.

Keke STILL blamed Sumire for no new members joining…just because. It got so bad Sumire agreed with Keke when Kinako blamed herself.

After Kinako explained what happened Liella again debated the First Years dilemma. They wanted to win Love Live but also wanted to share their love of school idols with everyone interested. Ren reminded them of her mother’s wish of making school idols and integral part of the school. In the end they decided to tone down their training to come off less intimidating. Kinako disagreed but that’s what her senpai begrudgingly decided. During their new toned down training it’s evident our heroines were forcing themselves to slow down. As Kinako again felt guilty a certain redhead called to her.

After Kinako again begged for her life Dr Shiki teleported to the scene saying “She’s a tsundere. Don’t worry about it”. The reason she called her was to encourage her not let the other first years stop her. If she wanted to help Liella go for gold then give it everything she had.

Dr Shiki’s “I’m proud of you darling” smirk.

The next day Kanon’s bummed about not training hard as usual and felt the need to jog. To her surprise Kinako and the others joined in. Of course Liella still wanted to give it their all. Kinako then opened up to everyone in a very passionate speech that almost had me tearing up. She was like “I know the training is tough and I’m not at your level yet but please don’t slow down for my sake. The Liella who inspired me were the pinnacle of excellence and I want to prove myself worthy by doing my best too at Regular difficulty. No “Easy Mode”!” Liella realized the best way to show how awesome school idols were and that they were open to every cutie/hottie was to keep doing their thing. Kinako herself would be an example of “anyone can do it if they are passionate and serious”.

Speaking of beauties we met a new mystery babe who had beef with Kanon. Could she be a new raivaru? I’m excited because we’re getting new raivarus besides Sunny Passion again. They’re great but there can never be enough sexy school idols.

Great stuff as always.